Journals Books

I really love this book it is good.I love the ending.It is about what happens when this boy is about 12 or 13 years old.If someone is looking for a book to read I would suggest this book!!

I am a teacher of 33 fifth graders. My children all loved this book---even the reluctant readers! It was an extremely popular book with the class and inspired many students to begin writing their own journals. We have also read "Jake's Journal" by the same author and are anxiously awaiting more from this author!

This book is the best book I ever read! It gets deep inside a young boy's life and tell things that just any body can understand about a teenage boy. He goes throgh times and trails, a lot children go through. It's pretty bad that can't nobody find this book anymore. Not even the places like the library carry this book, and they carry the oldest books!!!!????!!!!?!?!?! So I encourage every body that is looking at this ,order this book, you won't be unsatisfied!!!!!!!!!

I read this book pretty fast and I liked it. It has nice people in it and maybe bad people and all kinds of things happen to Boomer, who writes it. I wish there was more about Mary Margaret but it is Boomer's book so maybe she will make her own. Jake's Journal is what I am reading now which is so good. I keep a journal myself but nothing this exciting ever happens in my life. It is really good.

My name is Rory and I will be in sixth grade this fall. This book is about Boomer and his friends and they have adventures all the time. I think Boomer's Journal is one of the best books I ever read. I like Boomer he is nice and his friends too.

Carole Maso simply cannot be categorized. With books like AVA and Aureole, she shows how language can become an experience in itself, how certain sequences of words turn into moments of such beauty that you want to repeat them over and over, write them down, hang them on the walls so you can be surrounded by them. Break Every Rule does the same thing, although at times I found myself a little turned off by the author's obvious bitterness at a publishing industry that refuses to recognize her genius (I agree that she is a genius, but I wished she would harp on it a mite less). This bitterness turns up now and again throughout the essays included in Break Every Rule. It's a curious blending of modesty and arrogance. That being said, it was a lovely and invaluable experience to see how Maso conceives her work, how she thinks, and what she believes lies in the future for the novel. It's an unflinchingly feminine/ist, liberal plea for understanding and love.

Buy this book along with Beckett, Celan, Stevens, Godard, Fassbinder, Diamanda Galas, Kathy Acker, Craig Owens, Pasolini, Thalia Field, James Baldwin, Gladman, Part, Blake, Gomez-Pena . . . and you will have many good friends.

The venerable Carole Maso has just reminded us how literature "can be" and not "ought to be", and detailed her convincing arguments in this book, "Break Every Rule". The stern Rule-Makers would have us believe that, as writers, we can't do this and that, and must adhere to some "nifty" little rules invented by rigid minds. Well, here is a voice so clear that it can shatter glasses, and it is telling us to set ourselves free. How absolutely liberating!

Carole Maso is a writer of sumptuous, word-smitten prose. In this, an ecstatic's manifesto, the author declares that the future of the novel (if the form is to have a future) rests in the hands of women, gays, blacks, and all the other heretofore marginalized voices in our literature and our culture. Her words practically quiver on the page and anyone who, like me has had the desire to write but been stymied time and again by their inability and unwillingness to conform to the established bonds of the form will find a heartening warrior-ally in Maso.

These essays about literature (Maso's and other writers's), the act of writing, about Maso's own life are essentially an awakening, an alarm call to a new way of envisioning stories. I'm not familiar with William Carlos Williams, whom she credits as an influence, but I am familiar with Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf, whose influences are apparent in the novels I've read by Maso and in the techniques she uses to express. With each essay I was astonished at the innovative and dazzling approaches to language. In the essay "The Re-introduction of Color", Maso explores her struggle to find her writing self against the pressures of conformity and convention. This book is inspirational, educational, exquisite. Any writers or serious readers looking for ways to shake the trees of literature's stale greats will delight in this collection of essays, and each reader will find herself or himself challenged, seduced, and ultimately released.

(My review is on Thoreau's Cape Cod rather than this specific edition).

While some literary critics seem to slight this work by Thoreau, saying that it is not as "powerful" as his other works, etc., I personally find this one very enjoyable. Sure, it does not have as much "philosophizing" as other books by him, but it is full of humor and very fun to read. The part where he describes the old man spitting into the hearth is particularly hilarious. The part about him sleeping in a lighthouse is also very funny. It lets us experience the more jovial side of Thoreau. This is probably one of the easiest to read among Thoreau's books.

Published posthumously, this volume is surprisingly consistent and complete (unlike "The Maine Woods" which is chopped into three different parts), it gives one the feel of walking along the entire cape, although the materials are quarried from several different trips. One only wish Thoreau had lived longer and had seen the West, imagine him taking a trip in the Sierra! Oh, well, meanwhile, we still have this one to enjoy.

This hardcover edition from Peninsula Press is unquestionably the best available edition of Thoreau's Cape Cod, for these reasons:

1) While all other editions are based on Thoreau's journal entries from only his first three visits to the Cape, this edition includes an epilogue compiling Thoreau's notes from his fourth and final visit, in which he traveled south to Chatham and Monomoy.

2) This is the only edition to translate the many, many Greek and Latin phrases Thoreau includes throughout the work, and it is also the only edition to provide illustrations, maps, and sidenotes in-text.

3) This is the only indexed edition ever created.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for fans of both Cape literature and Thoreau in general.

Thoreau visited Cape Cod in 1849, 1850, and 1853. These trips formed the basis for a series of essays, several of which Thoreau published in magazines. After Thoreau's death, the essays were gathered together and published as "Cape Cod" in 1865.

Thoreau's "Cape Cod" is different in tone in theme from his earlier books. The tone is leisurely and light. Instead of solitude or the wild woods, the picture that remains with me from this book is that of a long walk, or, as Thoreau puts it, a "ramble" through the sand and dunes of Cape Cod. The book is picturesque, full of humor and wry observation. Thoreau unforgettably describes the ocean, in its storms, vicissitudes, and moments of peace, the fish and the fishermen, the sands, birds, plants and lighthouses of Cape Cod, and the people. I have visited portions of the Masachusetts coast, but I have never been to Cape Cod. Thoreau took me there in his book.

The book is arranged into ten chapters. It opens with a description of the shipwreck of the St John on a rock off the Cape. Thoreau then describes a ride by coach across the Cape. But the heart of the book lies in the following chapters in which Thoreau with a companion walks the 30 mile beach from Nauset Harbor to Provincetown with many stops and diversions along the way. I felt the salt air and saw the fishermen and the sandy beach as I walked with Thoreau.

The most vivid characterization in the book is in the chapter "The Wellfleet Oysterman", as Thoreau describes a grizzled, taciturn, and ancient native of Cape Cod and his family who offer him hospitality for the night. Another memorable chapter involves the description of the Highland Lighthouse, no longer standing, and its keeper. The stops with the Oysterman and the Lighthouse punctuate Thoreau's long walks through the day over the beach and his meditiations about and descriptions of what he finds there.

Thoreaus walk ended at Provincetown, on the northernmost portion of Cape Cod, with its wood walkway, shanty houses, and ever-present scenes of fishermen, boats, and drying fish. Thoreau offers what I found an affectionate portrait of these hardy fishermen and their families. Following a description of what he found at Provincetown, Thoreau offers a great deal of historical background on the exploration of the Cape, from the Pilgrims reaching back to earlier French, Icelandic, and English explorers.

Thoreau's "Cape Cod" is a worthy companion to his books describing his experiences inland, on Walden Pond and on the rivers and woods of New England and Maine. It is beautifuly written with unforgettable descriptive passages. It made me want to get up and go from my life in the city, and over 150 years after Thoreau wrote, wander and walk for myself along the dunes and sands of Cape Cod.

This book details the flora, fauna and people that Thoreau found in Cape Cod in the 1850s. Thoreau organizes the book around a single trip to Provincetown, although much of the material that he uses in the book came from various visits to the Cape, and to the ocean in general. He starts with a description of a shipwreck at Cohasset, then a stagecoach ride from Plymouth, then a walking trip with a companion along the outer shore to Provincetown. Along the way, he describes not only the plants and animals he encountered, but also the people who he met. The book finishes with a lengthy academic historical account of the discovery and mapping of the Cape.

I found this to be the most humorous of all Thoreau's work. The character sketches he provides in this book, sharpened with his trained eye for observation of natural phenomena, are legendary. The cultural description of the Cape and its environment is quite fascinating for those interested in the history of daily life in 19th century Massachusetts. As Thoreau describes the desolate, treeless desert that made up the far reaches of the Cape, one begins to comprehend what it meant for an economy to be based on wood and whale oil for fuels. Thoreau stresses how valued driftwood was for residents of the Cape, as one of their main sources of heating and cooking fuel. Doubtless, he would not recognize the Cape today with its lush new forests. Or its Wal-Marts--switching to an oil economy has brought mixed blessings for the Cape. For those who think Thoreau to be a humorless didactic philosopher, this book shows a very different aspect of Thoreau as a writer.

You will forget about the outside world when you read this; nothing but sand, wind, and water. Plus some natural history, local folklore, a few shipwreck tales. Typical Thoreau; he finds beauty, interest, detail in the wilderness. The desolate landscape will help to clear your mind. Highly recommended.

Britt Lamond played in the first episodes of Disney's Zorro. He was Capitan Monastario. The book wonderfully chronicles those first 13 episodes. Mr. Lamond makes a fantastic presentation of what went on behind the scenes. I have always thought the sword fights were the best I'd ever seen and after reading the book I realize why. Guy and Britt were well trained in sword fighting before Zorro ever came along. If you love Guy Williams as Zorro you will love this book. Thank you "Capitan Monastario"!

Britt Lomond has treated us to a rare, behind-the-scenes look at one of the most beloved TV series of all time (and still playing throughout the world today). "Chasing After Zorro" is a first-hand account of his experiences on-and-off the set, as well as the circumstances leading up the series' inception. It is written with the kind of insight, humor and love that only one of the actors who helped kick-off the series could offer. It is an endearing glimpse into a different (and long-gone) time in Hollywood and Disney.

With his long career in front and behind the camera - Mr. Lomond worked in production for years after acting - he presents a well-rounded view of the workings and politics that existed during those first 13 epissodes. He also sheds light on the friendships he had with the other people involved in the series, from Guy, Henry and Gene to the writers and directors, and even to Walt Disney himself. From the very first page with his dedication to his family, you know that you are in for a genuine and touching journey into the heart of those first Zorro episodes.

I highly recommend this one-of-a-kind book for any Zorro fans out there.

For those of us who remember the Zorro television series (the Walt Disney one, which is the only one for true Zorro fans), this book is a treasure. Britt Lomond gives us an interesting and informative tour of the first 13 episodes of the Zorro TV show, the ones in which he played the villian, Capitan Monastario. As many others have noted, he set the standard for villians in the series, and even though the succeeding bad guys (and gals) were exceptionally villianous in their own right, Capitan Monastario, as defined and played by Mr. Lomond, was never equaled and certainly never beaten.

The behind-the-scenes stories Mr. Lomond tells are fascinating, and he has uniformly kind words to say of his co-actors and the production personnel who did such a wonderful job of making the show so successful that it is still popular almost 50 years later.

That success was made possible by the contributions of artists like Mr. Lomond. He details each of the 13 episodes in which he appeared in the 13 chapters of his book, a fine way to present his material. In particular, he often notes the changes he himself made in the script. He would memorize the script, but then, where he thought his character would have said something different or would have said the same thing but in a different way, he would make the changes during the filming. Almost always, his changes were approved by the director. What this illustrates more than anything else is Mr. Lomond's professionalism. What he was doing was his very best to present his character as he thought the character actually was, or would have been had he been a real person. He was not satisfied with merely speaking his lines as written in the script; rather, he brought to the role an experience as an actor that was unique. Mr. Lomond even imagined the life of his character prior to the time depicted in the programs, in order to best know how his character would be motivated in various situations, and thus know how his character would act, react, and speak. By doing so, he depicted the personality of his character consistently in the best way.

Thus, he would study the script in the context of his own idea of what kind of man his character was, and he made changes which did not aggrandize his own role, but made the programs better because of his insistence on his character's acting and speaking the way he should. That kind of professionalism is, I think, rare in any line of work, including acting.

Mr. Lomond has nothing but praise for the others who worked so hard on the series, including unstinting praise for Guy Williams, Henry Calvin, Gene Sheldon, Than Wyenn, Tony Russo, and the other actors. The humorous stories he tells, such as tricks the actors played on one another, are fabulous, and he tells one story of a trip on the ocean in Guy Williams's sailboat that turned into a disaster and could very nearly have killed all on the boat. He has particular praise for Walt Disney himself as well as the directors, the production designer and art decorator, and others who made the programs look so good.

Mr. Lomond is a multi-talented artist, having acted in many stage, movie, and television roles, and also having worked in many different jobs behind the cameras. Look him up on [...] and you will see just how many different jobs he has done. Thus, he knows the filmaker's craft inside and out, and that makes his comments on the actors and production staff on the Zorro TV series that much more meaningful. He knows whereof he speaks, and he has done many of the jobs of the people about whom he writes in this book.

The substance of Mr. Lomond's writing is entertaining and full of information. The only criticism I have of the book is that he was not well served by the editors and proofreaders of his book; there are a great many typographical and other errors, not the fault of the author. The book is nonetheless deserving of 5 stars because of Mr. Lomond's writing.

If you are a Disney Zorro television series fan, this book is a must for you. If you are not, buy it and read it anyway; it will give you insights into the making of television programs that you would never know otherwise; and it will make you a Zorro fan if you are not one already.

What a pleasure it was to read this book. I enjoyed it immensely. Mr. Lomond had the right touch in writing about his experiences on the Zorro set. I especially enjoyed all the behind the camera material. It is very poignant to have read this book, shortly before Mr. Lomand died.

Britt Lomond gives us a lovely glimpse into the world of the Zorro phenomenon as it played out via Disney's magic in the late 1950's and early 60's. He treats us to a behind the scenes look at how the duels between Monastario and Zorro were choreographed... and how he still bears the Mark of Zorro to this very day from the sword tip of Guy Williams. Also revealed, perhaps inadvertently, is the wonderful nature of this man... who with gentlemanly grace accepted the role of Monastario rather than the coveted role of El Zorro... all for the good of the show and not his own ego. A recommended read...

"My library is in the third story of a tower; on the first is my chapel, on the second a bedroom with ante-chambers, where I often lie to be alone; and above it there is a great wardrobe. Adjoining my library is a very neat little room, in which a fire can be laid in winter, and which is pleasantly lighted by a window..." Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592) wrote in the chapter "On Three Kinds of Relationships". Montaigne liked being retired, seeking distance to a world of bloody fights between religious groups. Did these things develop, 400 years later? Montaigne tried to escape dogmatic thoughts finding a new way of writing and hammering out thoughts via his typical relaxed method of writing. Living 200 years earlier than the other genius of essay, the poor Soeren Kierkegaard, Montaigne was not as filled up with anxiety as the Danish philosopher - he instead managed to stay calm with a solid resource of optimism, though things outside his favorite tower often run very worse. His courageous goal was the overcoming of the stereotyped medieval conception of the world, in which humans usually had been overwhelmed by church- or government-authorities like puppets on a string. Montaigne established the departure to individual noticing, founded an anthropocentric view of world. This probably had something fresh to his contemporary readers. Montaignes program was to dip down in ones own mind: "Everyone, who is listening to his inner landscape of thoughts, is able to discover his identity, so that he is able to repel everything, which does not fit this." About his style of writing essayist Elias Canetti noticed: "Montaigne is most beautiful, because he does not hurry." Aged 17 Michel de Montaigne had ridden to Paris, to complete his humanistic education. There he had attached important relations, had operated with prostitutes notoriously and had squandered one the family wealth, until the father pulled the emergency brake and called him back to Bordeaux, where he had to begin a boring job at the local court (if we can trust the speculations of the French biographer Lacouture). Historically more secured is Montaigne's political identity: the France of his time had torn up, the faith splitting escalated in the "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" in Paris on 24 August 1572, bloody amuck in many other French cities followed, also in Montaigne's Bordeaux. He had been the mayor, and particularly in the second term of office 1583-85, he skillfully succeeded to calm down the parties (Catholics tried to slaughter the Protestant Huguenots). His "ideology-free" position had been developed in expanded studies of the classical philosophers - and in a thereupon diametrically opposite literary attempt to justify an own individual kind of thinking and writing: precisely analyzing human conditions (using oneself as the only field, we can explore without too much strange mistakes) without being paralyzed by social regulations of how to search and communicate. "I do not proclaim doctrines of faith, but not obligatory opinions, which you can classify as a gesture alike children, trying to show their experiments: they only want to learn, not to instruct or indoctrinate." The skeptical, further-asking, essentially open dialogue of Montaigne influenced such thinkers as Diderot, Lichtenberg or Nietzsche. His writing method encouraged philosophy, psychology - and hundreds of essayists. Indeed we hope, that Montaigne's voice will never get lost ...

Six months ago, I got into the habit of losing my mind. No day passed without some evidence of madness: depression, compulsion, mania, panic. Nothing helped--least of all the gray city where I live. One morning while reading this book, I felt my mind click back into place and I knew I would be all right. Since then, the Essays have been, for me, a touchstone of sanity. There is something about their boundaryless curiosity, their open admission of human frailty and mess, that pulls me back every time. It's a book of ideas that never forgets about blood, sweat and semen. Every day I sit with it there is some useful treasure. Today I was grateful to be reminded, "It is not victory if it does not end the war."

Or how about: "No quality embraces us purely and universally. If it did not seem crazy to talk to oneself, there is not a day I would not be heard growling at myself, 'Confounded fool!' And yet I do not intend for that to be my definition."

I distrust Montaigne's opinions on women and God--but to be right about mankind and life on Earth is a lot. As heavy as it is, this big book is always in my bag. Spend some time with it--it will help you stay sane.

Montaigne was one of those paradoxical characters who was both utterly lazy and completely devoted. His essays are like he is. Lazy, glad (but not too glad), and content to let the blasted world roll by with all of its absurdities and madnesses. Yet he is also taut and tense, intellectually stimulated and willing to stimulate.
Montaigne was wise because he was one of those rare characters who accepted his own humanity without the need to curse at it, exalt it, make it seem ordinary, and make it seem simple. I almost wrote that he made complexity look simple; he almost made it look easy. He did that by have interests that were as broad as that most capacious of faces - the face of the universe. But add to that Montaigne's central conviction that in the sight of God all things are small and you begin to get at the unobtrsively strange and humane part of his art. He combines (in his interests) things that are profoundly trivial and things that are profoundly - ah - profound.
Montainge has been described as a cheerful sceptic and no few harsh and ecstatic souls have been outraged by such a combination. But his cheer was based on the fact that he was both a sceptic and a man of faith - a man of faith before this dreadful age (the age we live in) settled in with its grand bifurcation between the assertive intellect born in the Renaissance was left to battle the pseudo-faith of the fundamentalist Christians. Montaigne would have been politely bewildered to have to speak to either Karl Marx or Jerry Falwell. They would have seemed both absurd and absurdly deranged to him. He was too balanced.
He was and remains a great corrective to our mystical tendencies. He does not cancel them out but he does smack them in the teethe and put them into order. He despised that perennial human desire to destroy humanity in the name of a state higher than humanity.

Donald Frame's translations of Montaigne's essays have long been considered one of the two finest contemporary translations available, M.A. Screech's excellent version being the other.

The essays speak for themselves, or at least should. Their popularity is well known and well deserved, and there are a number of fine essay collections available. What's great about this edition is that included with the classic essays are a few extant letters and Montaigne's travel journals, which were lost until almost two hundred years after his death. These additional pieces are not going to rival the essays in popularity -- the letters are few and formal, for instance -- but if you enjoy the mind of Montaigne you'll enjoy these extra inclusions.

Between June of 1580 and December of 1581, Montaigne -- with four other nobles and a variety of servants -- traveled through France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy before returning to Bordeaux. In the journals you'll find more evidence of the author's deeply interested view of the world around him, set out in that seemingly (and charmingly) haphazard, humane style found in spades in the essays.

In one entry, for instance, you'll find him retelling (with a straight face?) a local story he has heard of a young girl who jumped up and down so strenuously during play that she turned into a boy (Montaigne claims that at least a few locals back up this tale); in other entries you'll find him more down to earth, describing, for instance, the little stoves in the homes of Germany, or the tiles that lined some of the homes in what is now Switzerland, or the murals on the walls of Jeanne D'Arc's father's home.

By 1581, when Montaigne visited Rome, the treasures of the Vatican had become a mandatory stop on any well-informed traveller's itinerary. To his delight, Montaigne was shown ancient Roman and ancient Chinese manuscripts, the love letters of Henry VIII, and the classics of history and philosophy. Then, as now, the Vatican Library was one of the greatest in the Western world.

This journal is an interesting view of 16th-century Europe (the architecture, the topography, the manners and customs) through a master stylist's eyes. It's nice to have back in print an edition of Montaigne's complete works, especially since it uses Donald Frame's translations.

"My library is in the third story of a tower; on the first is my chapel, on the second a bedroom with ante-chambers, where I often lie to be alone; and above it there is a great wardrobe. Adjoining my library is a very neat little room, in which a fire can be laid in winter, and which is pleasantly lighted by a window..." Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592) wrote in the chapter "On Three Kinds of Relationships". Montaigne liked being retired, seeking distance to a world of bloody fights between religious groups. Did these things develop, 400 years later? Montaigne tried to escape dogmatic thoughts finding a new way of writing and hammering out thoughts via his typical relaxed method of writing. Living 200 years earlier than the other genius of essay, the poor Soeren Kierkegaard, Montaigne was not as filled up with anxiety as the Danish philosopher - he instead managed to stay calm with a solid resource of optimism, though things outside his favorite tower often run very worse. His courageous goal was the overcoming of the stereotyped medieval conception of the world, in which humans usually had been overwhelmed by church- or government-authorities like puppets on a string. Montaigne established the departure to individual noticing, founded an anthropocentric view of world. This probably had something fresh to his contemporary readers. Montaignes program was to dip down in ones own mind: "Everyone, who is listening to his inner landscape of thoughts, is able to discover his identity, so that he is able to repel everything, which does not fit this." About his style of writing essayist Elias Canetti noticed: "Montaigne is most beautiful, because he does not hurry." Aged 17 Michel de Montaigne had ridden to Paris, to complete his humanistic education. There he had attached important relations, had operated with prostitutes notoriously and had squandered one the family wealth, until the father pulled the emergency brake and called him back to Bordeaux, where he had to begin a boring job at the local court (if we can trust the speculations of the French biographer Lacouture). Historically more secured is Montaigne's political identity: the France of his time had torn up, the faith splitting escalated in the "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" in Paris on 24 August 1572, bloody amuck in many other French cities followed, also in Montaigne's Bordeaux. He had been the mayor, and particularly in the second term of office 1583-85, he skillfully succeeded to calm down the parties (Catholics tried to slaughter the Protestant Huguenots). His "ideology-free" position had been developed in expanded studies of the classical philosophers - and in a thereupon diametrically opposite literary attempt to justify an own individual kind of thinking and writing: precisely analyzing human conditions (using oneself as the only field, we can explore without too much strange mistakes) without being paralyzed by social regulations of how to search and communicate. "I do not proclaim doctrines of faith, but not obligatory opinions, which you can classify as a gesture alike children, trying to show their experiments: they only want to learn, not to instruct or indoctrinate." The skeptical, further-asking, essentially open dialogue of Montaigne influenced such thinkers as Diderot, Lichtenberg or Nietzsche. His writing method encouraged philosophy, psychology - and hundreds of essayists. Indeed we hope, that Montaigne's voice will never get lost ...

It matters not your station in life. Whether you are a business professional, working journalist, high school or college student or simply a concerned citizen we are all looking for ways to better inform ourselves about the pressing issues of our time. There is so much information available on the internet but I suspect that most of us rely on just a handful of websites to keep us abreast of just what is going on.
This is why I found James F. Broderick and Darren W. Miller's new book "Consider The Source" to be so exciting. What we have here are critical reviews of 100 of the most important and influential news and information sites on the web. In my view there is hardly a person out there who would not benefit from perusing this book.
What Broderick and Miller offer in "Consider The Source" is a treasure trove of useful material about how to best access information on the web. Just to give you an idea, the authors review websites covering news, sports, entertainment, science, medicine and more. They critique each website for design, content and accessabilty and are careful note any bias they might discover. Obviously, many of these sites have a point of view and the authors deem it important that their readers understand this.
Happily, Broderick and Miller do not limit themselves to sites that originate in the United States only. "Consider The Source" offers reviews on news and information sites from Britain, India, France, Australia,Ireland and even Asia and Africa. In addition, you will see reviews of various U.S. government websites such as the Library of Congress, CIA, FBI and NASA. Some absolutely fascinating stuff there! In the list of 100 websites, the reader will find the familiar as well as a number of hidden gems they have probably never even heard of. Of this group I might recommend to you a site called The Onion. Hilarious!
As I read "Consider The Source" I jotted down the sites I would be interested in bookmarking. Not surprisingly, I came up with a list of more than two dozen. The fact is that I had never even heard of many of these sites. Still others were websites I had never even accessed before.
"Consider The Source" is written in clear, concise language that just about everyone can understand. Not a lot of jargon here! Reading this book is absolutely time well spent! I would not be surprised that if the authors chose to issue updated versions of the book from time to time. I highly recommend "Consider The Source" to everyone!

Consider the Source provides clarity among the internet chaos for readers like myself who depend on the Web for news. This book provides a "yellow brick road" leading to an honest evaluation of news and information sites on the web. Miller and Broderick have given readers an invaluable guide to the most accurate internet news sites.

Where can you get the news you need, and how can you keep up with it? A professor of journalism and a working reporter combine forces to produce a critical A-Z guide to the best - and worse - news information sites on the web, offering 100 critical reviews paired with a 5-star rating system. From learning the motives and bias behind different sites to considering alternative sites and news press and how they operate differently from mainstream media, CONSIDER THE SOURCE: A CRITICAL GUIDE TO 100 PROMINENT NEWS AND INFORMATION SITES ON THE WEB is a pick for both college-level collections strong in media studies and general-interest lending libraries alike.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is the first book I have ever seen that gives the public direction on which news sites to visit. The Web has created content overload, but who to trust and who to devote limited time too? That is what this book has done. And it is not a boring look at Web sites, but instead brings each site to life and goes in depth on how they operate. I love the ranking system and especially was interested to see that many sites I never considered before were ranked so highly.

I can see why this book is promoted to students, journalists, PR professionals, and news hounds - but I'm none of the above and still found this book a great find! I, like most people, find myself going to the same sites over and over and was looking for something to expand my Internet reading list. There were dozens of sites that I had never heard of and have now been placed on my Favs list. Definitely got my money's worth on this one!

A brilliantly written book by an ex-Grumman test pilot who has a natural storyteller's gift for telling a fascinating story in a gripping way.
Corwin "Corky" Meyer became a test pilot for Grumman during WW2, and continued to help develop a wide range of aircraft during a period of rapid technological change.
How he survived an era of testing which included for each fighter a "terminal speed dive" test which inevitably took the powerful piston engined fighters deep into the sound barrier compressibility zone is a story which is well worth the price of the book itself. Add stories such as blowing off the nose cone of a Panther whilst testing the guns, the Panther that lost its entire rear fuselage when testing the arrester hook system - fortunately on dry land - and the saga of the experimental swing-wing XF10F-1 Jaguar (a classic case of a new engine in a new airframe resulting in a series of near-disasters).
I can't recommend this book too highly, and in fact anything written by this amazing survivor of a remarkable period of technological progress in aviation, which cost many lives of heroic test pilots.
I found this book such a stimulating read that I have (so far) bought two, as I think that the first copy, which I have lent out, will be of such interest that I may not get it back!
David Smith

In 1942 with only a few hundred hours of flying in low performance aircraft Corky Meyer had the audacity to apply for a test pilot slot at Grumman. Why Grumman, because everyone else had turned him down.

By way of comparison a test pilot hoping to find employment at Grumman or Lockheed today would probably have three thousand hours of high performance jet time, an undergrad or masters in engineering and would have graduated at or near the top of his class at the AF or Navy test pilot schools. However, Corky's arrival at Grumman was at the build up to WW2.

The book continues with Meyer's fantastic experiences during and after WW2, testing not only the Grumman aircraft but virtually all of the top us fighters plus the Zero and ME 109. During WW2 the high performance fighters began to approach the sonic range where forces took over control of the aircraft. Forces that the engineers were just beginning to understand. Meyer was literally at the cutting edge of technology; but in this case the cutting edge was the executioner's sword in too many cases.

I will not spoil the story with the tale of the engineer's fix for the Bearcat as it entered this range but suffice to say that the words " we have an idea" from engineers are the most feared words to the test pilot. Given the times and the need to advance the technology at a pace we could not imagine today test pilots were pretty much expendable. However, it is to Grumman's credit that they lost very few pilots in this period.

Meyer continues into the beginning of the Cold War and then Korea when the race to develop and deploy new designs was just as frantic as that in WW2. He chronicles the early age of jet fighters and the many trials and challenges.

For those with an appreciation and love of the magnificent fighter aircraft of WW2 or the early jet age this book is required reading. Not to be missed.

I first met Corky a year ago when composing a free lance article for a local New York Times magazine publication. Without a doubt, he is an interesting individual, with unique talents and adventures so vividly expressed throughout this book. He dramatically lays out his life's love of flying and, the reader will capiture the essence of just how his personality and manner of expression undoubtedly guided Grumman throughout its hayday years. Anyone possessing the least interest in aviation and such an important phase of American history, should reward themselves by reading Corky's Flight Journal

My father flew with Corky as a crew chief checking out TBFs for navy acceptance. He said he was a great guy and the book shows how true that is.

This book is a miracle. The miracle is that the author lived to write it.

'Corky' Meyer joined Grumman in the 1940s when that company was demonstrating its ability to design and build Navy fighters such as the Hellcat and Bearcat (and, later, other types of Naval aircraft and civilian flying boats), and went on to undertake flight test of essentially every significant Grumman fighter from the F-6F-3 Hellcat, the F-8F-1 Bearcat, the twin-engined F7F-1 Tigercat, the jet F-9F-2 Panther, the Navy's first swept-wing fighter--the F-9F-8 Cougar, up to the F11-F Tiger (all Grumman's fighters have been named after cats of various types). He became one of the very few, if not the only civilian pilot ever to achieve 'carquals'--carrier qualifications.

Meyer flew dozens of different aircraft from many countries, and his commentaries are illuminating, including his chapter on "the best fighters of WWII," undertaken for FLIGHT JOURNAL. His conclusions, based significantly on analysis of warfighting results, will be the subject of endless hangar flying by readers of the book.

This book charmingly, humbly but with marvelously tongue-in-cheek humor traces the author's adventures and misadventures over a long and brilliant career in flight test. He and a few dozen other civilian and military test pilots enabled the difficult, painful and often fatal transition from the relatively simple propeller-driven fighter aircraft that endured into the 1950s up to the current complex devices. Many did not survive but gave their lives to flight test, bravely, often in the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

In effect, his experience covers the transition from personal observation by the hands and the seat of the pants to the slide rule to the eventual use of sophisticated measuring systems on the aircraft that morphed eventually into computer-aided simulation and telemetry, as speeds went from subsonic to supersonic, and as materials, structures, systems and procedures placed ever-increasing demands on every aspect of aircraft development from initial design through prototyping into flight test and eventual production. Meyer was never afraid to speak his mind to those around him, sometimes insisting on changes that took a lot of time and effort to undertake but were proved right in the end. His conclusions were sometimes intuitive but were often right. When he was wrong, he said so.

This book reminds me of the similarly marvelous SPITFIRE: A Test Pilot's Story, by Jeffrey Quill (see my review), and it belongs on the bookshelf of every pilot interested in understanding whose shoulders we are truly standing on. Meyer and Quill, brothers in the cockpit, write definitively about some of the most interesting flying ever done.

The book is particularly important for pilots who are interested in naval aviation (every naval aviator will enjoy it) because it makes clear that aircraft development for carrier operation is a very difficult art. It requires not only that the basic characteristics and performance meet the specifications for a fighter aircraft but that it must also be able to withstand the rigors of carrier arrivals (22-feet-per-second descent rate at trap), acceptable approach speeds and stability that makes it suitable for average naval aviators (there is probably no such thing, especially in the eyes of naval aviators).

Problems are always more interesting to read about than cake walks, and Meyer got his fill. He saved his life, and the lives of countless others, through his ability to analyze, decide and act decisively under severe stress. His description, alone, of his flight-test experience of the variable-sweep XF10-F-1 Jaguar and its appalling difficulties (it was a significant contributor to the F-14 Tomcat, technically) is worth the price of the book, but any page you look he describes, often with profound candor, the lot of the test pilot before (and this is crucial in terms of survival) reliable ejection seats were developed.

So the miracle happened. Corky lived to write this fine book. It lacks only an index.
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Disclaimer: early in the development of the book, Corky asked me to help with the editing. He didn't need my help. He writes as well as he flies.

This book is hilarious and creepy all at once. It is also extremely well written by a unique individual with outstanding literary skill.
His Love/Hate essays had me clutching my sides and his observations are so far out of the mainstream that you just want to hug him! There should be more of it!! Viva Waters.

amazon actually asked me to write a review of this book. some people must have found my last review useful (I've only written two previously).
anyway, I've only given the book 4 stars instead of five because its neither comprehensive nor definitive, but I value just about anything pertaining to john waters. so, let's see. john waters lives in a real city (Baltimore), and goes to new York and L.A. on business (expensives paid). living in baltimore gives john waters a wonderful slant on events. (Baltimore is associated with E. A. Poe -- I don't even like verse except for "the raven"!) so, we know from reading the book that john waters will subscribe to any publication that will publish an article he has written. the early days of his films must have been desperate times, requiring divine to eat dog excrement. can't say enough about the importance of divine to some of john waters's films. so far the best john waters movie seems to be "hair spray". divine and riki lake were incredible! can't imagine john travolta as Tracy's mom in the new picture directed by someone else, but the actress playing Tracy looks very good from what I have seen of the trailers. so, the book is definitely worth reading just to find out more about john waters. for instance really good to know that john waters steaks out the locations of his films in his tuna boat car like a detective before filming in Baltimore. imagining john waters in his comfortable apartment pondering his next move, while drinking
ovaltine.

This book is so well-written, I think if John Waters hadn't become a film director he would have made an even better author. This book is so funny, but it is also a goldmine. There are so many references to obscure and interesting movies, books...all sorts of things. I learned so much! I had never heard of the film "Christmas Evil" before, but read about it in the book and was delighted to find it on netflix! It was insane!!! What a gem!

You could literally keep a notepad to scribble down movies to rent, books to read and things to google while reading this book. Lots of fun to read, and tons more to discover after you are done.

I have been a fan of John Waters for years. I read Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters while sitting at a coffee bar near Bloomingdale's in NYC. I was surrounded by "the ladies who lunch." The book made me snicker, chuckle, guffaw, and produce a series of embarrassing noises produced when you try to suppress hysterical laughter in an inappropriate place. The embarrassing sounds made me laugh even more, and the looks of disgust from disapproving shoppers ultimately sent Diet Pepsi through my nose.

I could not offer a finer tribute to anything produced by the mind of John Waters. God bless you, John.

I just finished reading Crackpot last week, and it kept me entertained from beginning to end. I'm not an avid reader, so being able to get through any book is usually impossible for me, no matter what the length. Not only was the book nice and short, but John Waters really does know how to keep your attention. His writings are a great compliment to his films and I can't wait to read Shock Value! I love you, John!

This manual and audio CD set are great for yoga beginners like me. Dana walks you through each pose, and you can customize your workout to meet your personal needs and goals. I never felt overwhelmed or confused, it is very relaxing and inspiring. Even advanced users can benefit from this series.

Dana created a wonderful book that enables me to practice at home, in the order I am comfortable with and that best suits my needs! I am still learning, but this book allows me to move at my own pace. The photos are a tremendous help to be sure I am posturing myself correctly.
Great work, Dana!
ACat

I recently purchased the book and the audi discs and I love them. I am not yet at a point where I am willing to go to a Yoga class and this book is giving me the courage do so now that I am familar with the positions.

The book is customized to specific body areas which encourages me to work on my problem areas. The book also offers modifications if you are having difficulty getting into the positions as pictured. It's also a great book to bring along when traveling.

I highly recommend Dana Edison's Yoga. Although I can't get into the positions completely.. YET.. my flexibility improved after a week using the modified positions.

I can finally practice my yoga when its convienent for me! At home, or even in the gym, this book and CD makes practicing alone so much easier! The picturs and easy to read instructions coundn't be better. I also LOVE how the book is broken down into different body parts. So, just as I would train different body parts in the gym with weights on different days, I can incorporate different poses and stretches for the body part I'm training on that particular day.
The core exercises are great! I do them daily, and they hit the core in a way no ab machine in the gym could come close to!

The book title says it all: her method of yoga is not "one size fits all." It very customizable for anybody interested in the practice. It's also very clear and straight-forward, perfect for beginners and advanced users while being very comprehensive. Plus, Dana is incredibly hot. :-)

This book sat around my house for at least 3 years. I never expected to read it, but never gave it away. One evening I was digging through my pile of books looking for anything to read while I took my evening bath. By the second chapter it was clear God had put this book in my house for a reason. I was craving for an awakening in my spirit but having a hard time getting off the bench. This was just what I needed. What a great surprise. I love the ideas presented in this book. If you are a burned out wife and Mom like me looking for a shake up in your spiritual life, read this one.

I go back and do this book every couple of months. I bought it for three younger teen cousins and my 11 year old sister. They will get as much out of it as I do at age 25. Can't say enough about this fantastic journal.

This book was wonderful. I saw myself over and over again. Angela has a wonderful way of saying what most feel.

All my life I've longed for the answers written within the pages of this book. Not only did I learn about beauty but I learnt how to love the not-so-beautiful experiences of my life. Above all, I leaned to be real! I am so thankful to Angela for being so frank. It was a sigh of relief to have so many questions that I've had all my Christian life....answered!

This book was amazing and i couldent put it down from beggining to end! Angela writes straight from the heart about everthing in the book and truly puts herself out there. As a young woman i could definitly relate completly to her and constantly find myself wanting someone to " tell me im beautiful". But throught the book i have learned that God is there to fill the spot for me, to call me beautiful! If only i had read this book earlier i know it would have without a doubt made my teen years so much easier. It a great book for adults and teens alike and i would recomend it to any woman, as i know we have all at one time or another felt the way that Angela described.