Reds Books

I read this book when I was 11, and have loved it for 30 years.I bought it for my 9 year old to read with me at night befor bed.Today we were on the last chapter..with her reading it out loud as I drove her to school..with both of us bawling like babies..I asked her if she wanted to stop, fearing the story was too emotional for her,"...are you crazy!!???.." was all she said through the tears.."..this is now my favorite book!!.. I remembered I too felt the same way 30 years ago. Now Im on here buying it in hardback for her to someday read to my future grandchild, who will love it as much as we did.

I havent read the whole book, but in my literiture book for school there was a chapter or two in it and i fell i love!!!! I asked my mom if i could get the book and she must have been starteled becaus she looked really stuned!!! lol but she said "Yeah sure we can Lauren!" and so I hope u read this book!!! Billy, Little Ann(Hound Dog), and Old Dan(Hound Dog) are awsome life like things!! You would totally love it and i strongly recomend this as a bed time book or just for a good read!!
God Bless you all, Lauren

This book with its literature related selections is an excellent resource for upper elementary teachers. I've incorporated the 6+ Traits of Reading easily with excerpts from the selection.

Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls is a story about a boy living in the Ozark Mountains and his desire to have two hound dogs. This longing was complicated by the fact that his family were too poor to buy the dogs. The story that follows is one of adventure and excitement.

I loved this book because of the friendship between the boy and his dogs. When I was reading it I felt like I was the Billy, the main character. I read it in 3 days and then felt sad that it was all over. All dog lovers should read this book.

Wilson Rawls taught me through this book not to give up when circumstances look impossible.

I read this book when I was 11, and have loved it for 30 years.I bought it for my 9 year old to read with me at night befor bed.Today we were on the last chapter..with her reading it out loud as I drove her to school..with both of us bawling like babies..I asked her if she wanted to stop, fearing the story was too emotional for her,"...are you crazy!!???.." was all she said through the tears.."..this is now my favorite book!!.. I remembered I too felt the same way 30 years ago. Now Im on here buying it in hardback for her to someday read to my future grandchild, who will love it as much as we did.

Love this Novel series! I purchased this set for my mother's birthday, she is an avid reader and expects high quality writing. She loved them; her friends loved them and so do I! Full of historical informations, but not to the detriment of a great story!

I don't know how Judith Pella continues writing such excellent books one after another. This was another excellent book but I really missed Sergei. I know he died in the last one but I still couldn't get it through my head that he was gone!I was so attached to him throughout the series. This book focuses more on Sergei and Anna's sons, Andrei and Yuri. Andrei pursues his revolutionary ideals, while his older brother takes on the Federcenko name and becomes a respectable Russian doctor. Each of the characters face numerous obstacles in a country that is slowly crumbling to pieces beneath their feet. Another excellent read in the series. The story line never faulters and the characters never become dull or uninteresting. If you loved the first five in the series, then you will definitely love this one as well.

This novel is as well-written as the first and the storyline keeps the reader interested. Five stars for each book in the seven-part series.

"The Russians" series is by far the best historical fiction I have ever read. Judith Pella(and Micheal Phillips in the earlier books) weave a wonderful story of life during the Russian Revolution. These books don't portray an idealistic view of life during this time, but,rather, a very realistic view of what people went through in Russia during the revolution. I reccomend this series to anybody who loves Russian history, romance, intrigue, or just a good cry because this series has it all!

The Russian series has been one of the best I've read. These are the kind of books that make learning history exciting! As you read this series, you become so involved in the charcters lives and feelings, it as if you have known them personally. But the authors have done extensive research to make the true history so accurate as the characters walk through life and we view it from their eyes.The struggles and hardships, as well as the joy and happiness, we feel it all. I love the way belief and faith in God,or the search to find it, is protrayed in the lives of each individual.This book is nearing the revolution and you see how family and friends may have had differing opinions and how they dealt with it. The whole series is excellent and keeps you riveted to the end!

Linda Schierse Leonard provides anyone interested with the resources to look at psyche and archtype in relationship to being a creative person in "Witness to the Fire". For the "artist", this book is extremely helpful in providing a way of looking at onesself with the eye of an informed Jungian. You will come back to this book again and again as new issues come up in the creative process.
In particular, Leonard deals with addictive behaviors as they affect the psyche of the creative person. She outlines the lives of real people -- ranging from Dostoevsky to her own clients -- who have experienced the archtypal roles she describes.
Leonard's descriptions and analyses will assist the reader in understanding the behavior and thinking of anyone experiencing the struggles of creativity. She offers insights and descriptions that can be helpful to any reader who seeks to maximize their ability to truely live and create in a conscious manner.

This is actually an appreciation - not a literary review. I am an alcoholic in recovery and have an immense gratitude to Linda for writing this book. In her book I found answers, or rather experiences I could relate to, so similar and fitting to many issues burning and un-explained within me. My daimon has been enriched and my recovery program enhanced as a result of reading her great work. I have become a survivor (witness) to the road less travelled up the ladder out of the Abyss - I am no longer terrified to visit that void of darkness because I understand the burning issues of Creativity and Addiction parallels and inter-relations all that much better for reading her book. I am able, daily, one step at a time, to unshackle myself as a hostage to my addiction and choose to harness my creativity productively as a result of being a student of "Witness to the Fire". And I am a student of her work still, and always will be, due to my acceptance of my powerlessness over my lifelong disease and my need for every tool I can find to keep me healthy and strong. But I have chosen to let My Higher Power guide my daily existence and can therefore cope and be creative once more. Linda's book is constantly next to my bedside along with my "Big Book" and "My Recovery Book" - in daily use during my prayers and meditations. You helped save my life Linda - Thank You. Colin Tatham

Never have I seen anything quite like this. This is the definitive book on creativity. & When you don't create, ahhh, the ills that befall us. We fall into an addictive pattern trying desperatedly to recreate that atonement w/God. Failing that, one either drinks, or does whatever to replicate that feeling one more time. Again & again. This book revealed the essence alcoholism. Why certain people drink or create. Simple as that. I've reread this one @ least 2x now. Enjoy your journey.

This is a unique and courageous book, as heartening to the artist as to the addict in each of us. It is a marvelously distilled meditation on creativity's darkness en route to the light. Leonard has deftly woven literary, spiritual, and psychological treatments of the dark night of the soul into a seamless tapestry, and found precious meaning in some of the most devastating aspects of human experience. For anyone facing their own darkness, this book is a welcome and comforting companion, an inspiring guide, and a very wise friend.

Should be mandatory reading in any drug/alcohol counseling course. I've read this book 2x and have savored it completely each and every time. I've gained new insights into myself. I finally understood the reaons for which I drank and how barren and empty my soul was for spirit. How badly I wanted to be "drunk" with spirit. And in my inability to replicate that experience, which fed my frustrations and in turn, lead me to drink. Understood the "voices" in my head that were there to punish me for every imagined infraction. Those harmful "parental voices" mocking approval and throwing tibits of love at me. My need to feel the connection to the spirit and the easy road that I took as a young adult. Every time I have re-read a page or two out of this book has always led me to create some form of art in some way.

What a wonderful book to reference. You look through the book to the page or pages that you are feeling that day, and get inspired. It's a book almost all women can relate to, and it's like a non-judgemental girlfriend's advice! Loving, spiritual, deep and thoughtful-you will feel better after reading it! and always have it close by....

SUe Patton Thoele, you have done it again, I love reading your books!!
You have brought such positivity into my life!!!
From feeling down to feeling empowered!!!

I fell in love with this book the moment I opened a random page to glance through it in a store. To be honest, I did not care much for the title, it sounded tacky to me then, but having read a few pages the smirk on my face faded away. Personally I myself am steel strong, but the images in the book brought to life memories and experiences of my mother, aunts and friends, who simply give, give, give. This book calls women for a pause to reflect and redefine lessons taught to us for centuries. The best aspect is its readability - one story, one example, one lesson at a time. I don't keep any bookmarks in it, but whenever I open it, I stumble upon what I just needed to hear that day - magical! Great book to gift.

My favorite book of Sue Thoele's is the very first one I bought- "The Woman's Book of Confidence". It was just what my slightly sagging ego needed, and it continues to provide much food for thought. Each time I come to a particularly good pearl of wisdom, I put in a book mark for easy future reference. This happened often. Pretty soon the thicker bookmarks were replaced with thinnner ones, but even then that book is fighting the battle of the bulge!

I keep this book and its sisterbook, "A Woman's Book of Courage", in my bottom desk drawer at work. From time to time, whenever I feel depressed, uncertain, insecure, I read passages from these books and feel immediately uplifted. My sense of confidence is restored, and I get back to work.

I find these book really exciting i already have book 1 and 3 of the trilogy. i hope more of these will be written. I am a fan of x men

I thought that the third installment of the chaos series was probibly the best that Roman wrote. His back and fourth sequence of events made you feel like you were right there in the story. Please read the first two before reading the third, or at least the second one first (that's actually what I did) because after reading the 2nd, you'll HAVE to buy the last installment to find out what happened. It was beautifully written and I loved every moment of it

I enjoyed this book much more than the first one. I didn't like the first novel (Doctor Doom), because the villain was written just like a madman. (Dr. Doom's behavior was very illogical and abrupt. It bothered me a lot.)
In this book, Magneto's personality was portrayed very carefully and thoroughly. In his new world, Magneto was written as a person with a noble soul and ideal and I could understand him better than in any other novelization. I was touched by his conversation with Professor X.

This book is above the average and definitely worth to read. But as a person who read both Legacy Quest and Chaos Engine trilogies, I will recommend the Legacy Quest trilogy over this one. Legacy Quest has more interesting plots and character development.

x-geeks, this is for you. nice job of putting lee/byrne cast into chaos.

Ok, before I start, read the first two before you read this one, as they were excellent books as well, and you really have to read the other two just to get the story in this one.

This book was amazing. Roman finds a way to perfectly balance out all the different characters in the book and it is well written...simply put.

This part of the trilogy takes you to the version of earth where the Red Skull comes upon the cosmic cube, bringing about the Fourth Reich where the nazis had defeated the allied forces in World War 2. Mutants are considered the scum of the earth and the Skull goes by means of special task forces, and sentinels to apprehend these genetic impurities. Cyclops (who's secret as a mutant isn't discovered until mid-story) and his wife (Frau Sommers) are the poster-couple of the empire, Storm presides in Africa where all colored humans and mutants were sent to- her powers deactivated genosha-style, Magneto is in a concentration camp, Nightcrawler is on the Lightning Force strike team of the empire (though he is still considered scum, he only gets to be on the team because he is a true german), rogue is a tool of the empire, gambit is a collared worker, professor x is a traitor to the mutant race, leaving Psylocke and Warren the only 2 X-Men left unaffected by the cube. The story has 2 plots really that are going on. Betsy and Warren are up in the citadel where Doom is ascending to god-hood (won't tel you how), and of course you have the cube/Red Skull storyline. Definitely a 2 thumbs up!!!

It's too bad that since the last Boston World Series Championship, the New York Yankees have only won about 22. (Heh Ty - who won the CDE Championship in 1961? Give up? - The Yankees!!!)

Nothing but the pain and despair of being a true Bosox fan could ever prepare an author like it must have for Mr. Waterman. The book was a bright read about a very different game in a very different America. As much a chronicle of the era as baseball and the Red Sox themselves. A first class study of the despair of every Red Six fan!

I beleieve the Braves won the 1960 CDE Title!

No team in professional sports offers a full scale opera with each game more than my beloved Boston Red Sox. All Red Sox and baseball fans know the trials, tribulations, and horror that surrounds this team, and with it Boston, and all of New England. Buckner in '86, Torrez in '78, Bill Lee's junk pitch to Tony Perez in game 7 of '75, the collapse in 72, the could have been of '67, the should have been of '48, Enos Slaughter in '45...the Red Sox have sustained their share of horrific luck since Harry Frazee dealt the Babe to New York in 1919...

Few fans remember, or realize, that the Red Sox dominated baseball for the first 20 years of the past century. They had great pitchers from Cy Young to "Smoky" Joe Wood, to the Babe, and hall of famers Harry Hooper, Tris Speaker, Young, the Babe... yes, the Sox had it all, and it all culminated in 1918, the last time the Babe-led Sox won the World Series.

Waterman's book is a delightful piece of Americana, complete with old tyme sketches, photos, box scores, standings, and everything else that made 1918 what it was- a simpler time in baseball. The stories, from the trade of Speaker to the Indians to the many showcasing the Babe's probelms but undeniable charisma and popularity, to that of Harry Hooper's fight against MLB that lasted all of his life, are fascinating and riviting. The newspaper writers were more than that in those days- they became part of the saga, as well.

This book is a remarkable historical document that fans of baseball, no less those of the Red Sox, will appreciate. Many of the day's brightest stars are mentioned, and it hearkens back to a day when to play baseball was a privledge, not a job. ..and while the 1918 Red Sox were a dysfunctional lot, they played the game hard, and loved what they did. The book, cartoons, and stories from the writers clearly show this. Baseball today can learn more than a thing or 2 from the 1918 Red Sox and baseball of that era. A delightful and informative read.

But in 1918, the Sox won. They really, really won. This well researched book makes me fell like I was there, 83 years ago, following the REd Sox daily, the same way I do now. Difference is, they win it and this is not good fiction, it is great non-fiction. What Ken Burns did for baseball history, Ty Waterman does for the 1918 Red Sox.

Another interesting thing about this book is the news clips which is how you, as a reader, follow along with the season. The interesting part is not just the information from long ago, but how a ball club is written about back in 1918, and how it differs today. Sure the players had "issues" back then, but now days we can get bogged down on the importance of player's personal problems and the effect that has on the team. Looking foward to digesting the next Ty Waterman fact filled book.

Great reading !! The book takes you back to that glorious Sox summer of 1918, and as ALL Sox fans are aware of, the last World Championship season. It chronicles the entire season from start to finish. You can also see how the writing style of the sportswriters was quite different than it is nowadays. Also captured in the book are various cartoon illustrations that are no longer a part of the current day sports page, but quite popular back then. This book should be must reading for all Sox fans.

Reviewed by Nick Gauvin (age 12) for Reader Views (8/07)

It's the year 2024, 20 years since your favorite baseball team (the Boston Red Sox) won the World Series, and you and your friends are worried that the 86-year Curse has once again settled on the Red Sox. So during the summer you and your friends (Peter "capisce" Capiscio, Joe "lights" and Paul "paulie" Beacon and you, Jerry "tags" Taglia) come up with a crazy plan to steal it for them. The Plan includes a new system of umpping called the "Cleanerama" which is controlled by cameras and sensors around and on the field called "the Brain," your dad who is a button salesman, a cannibal who lives in the sewer, and a hot dog.

Now let me tell you more about the characters. Capisce is twice the size of everyone else and is stronger than the rest. Lights is the fastest of all of them and is twins with paulie. Tags' dad is a button salesman and one day buys him a Louie Cardinale series glove (and by the way, he's his idol) and tells him to rub baby oil on it to help it squeeze easier. Then, about two weeks later, he and his friends get together and his friends are shocked by the glove. By that time, it is the second half of the season and the red sox are ten games ahead of everyone else and they think that even the Red Sox can't lose this lead.

Overall, I think that "The Year They Won" is an excellent book for anyone who likes baseball. Great job, Gerard Purciello!

This is a lively and fun book about four friends (Jerry "Tags" Taglia, Peter "Capisce" Capiscio, Paul "Paulie" Beacon, and Paul's twin brother, Joe "Lights" Beacon) and the Boston Red Sox. The friends come up with a wild plan to steal the World Series of 2024 for the Sox, who haven't won the Series in twenty years. They spend their whole summer working on the Plan, but the Plan goes hilariously wrong! (Turns out that the boys are brave enough to face the cannibal in the sewer, but they're no match for an elderly security guard.)

What do a robotic umpire, the "Cleanerama," a button salesman, and the "World's Best Sausage" have in common? Not much, but they all come into play in this wacky and entertaining novel about buddies, baseball, and the Boston Red Sox. (Did I mention the cannibal in the sewer?)

One might describe this book as a wonderful Sox adventure. Gerard Purciello is an amazing author. I would read other books by Mr. Purciello. (However, the language could have been chosen more wisely for the displayed age group.) All and all, I loved THE YEAR THEY WON. It's a great book, not only for Red Sox fans, but for all baseball fans'well, maybe not Yankee fans (just kidding)!

By a Flamingnet Book Reviewer for www.flamingnet.com

This book took me back to my summer vacations and hanging out with the kids in the neighborhood. Summer vacation...We never wanted it to end...And this book has magically captured those childhood days.
It is just terrific!
I should also mention, that my son, a very reluctant reader loved it. As a parent in search of books for a young boy (he's 11) who doesn't like to read, I found The Year They Won to be a real winner!

I knew I was going to like this book after just a couple of pages. The characters reminded me of my own childhood friends and the fun we had playing stickball and impersonating our heroes. The story was very creative (I was getting tired of reading recaps of the 2004 Red Sox season - this isn't one of them) and makes you want to grab your son or dad and go watch a game.

Can't wait to read more books by Purciello.

This book made me want to spend all day playing with my friends again and dreaming up outrageous schemes. It made me want to lie in the grass and listen to cicadas in the trees, and bats cracking on balls.

Chock full of funny characters and scary chases through dark tunnels! Exciting behind the scenes glimpses at a Fenway Park we only dream about.
Made me smell the hot dogs. A kids book that grown-ups will love.

The author portrays an unnamed narrator living in an Austrian village in a "mind-hostile and mood-killing neighbourhood". He lives in nearly total isolation having given up all contacts for the sake of his intellectual work. But eventually his contactlessness proves a catastrophe bringing him to the verge of madness, insanity and suicide. For three months he never leaves his house, full of fear, in a kind of self-incarceration.
One night, seeking the help of the only person he trusts, a real-estate agent called Moritz, the narrator becomes acquainted with an odd couple: a Swiss and his Persian wife who have just arrived in the village to buy a plot for the construction of their house. He finds the Persian woman a regenerating thinking, talking and philosophising partner who saves him from depression and during their conversations he discovers why the Swiss came there to buy a plot which has a marked slope, a high degree of dampness and where snow clearance is impossible in the winter.
A work in which nihilism finds its most uncompromising expression, which presents a human situation devoid of any meaning and which shows that speech is a useless therapy to fend off death. From this perspective there is only one possible answer to the ultimate question.

Abnormal characters,very distant locations and a disturbing plot combined masterfully to create a poetic novel.

I have long been a fan of Bernhard, and this is one of my favorites. It appears to be less ambitious than his "masterpieces," but this untrue. I find it to be one of his most intimate, intelligent, comical and most brutal pieces of work. It is incredibly concise and as readable as "Wittgenstein's Nephew." It contains everything one desires of Bernhard, due in part to the fine translation, stripped down to the to the bone. Something is always lost in translation, but an excellent ear and eye has been at work here. It is a poetic masterpiece with blinding light, brialliant language, and a twisted satori. Aside from the politcal, moral, social and philosophical criticism that is Bernhard's trademark, there is a unbelievable consecration between the author and reader that takes place and demands that "you must change your life." If you allow it to happen you will be left with nothing but an eyelash and a sock, but you will find that the author with all his vitriol,sarcasm,and "so black it's blue" humor, has still preserved what is best in the human heart, and damn, he tells a good story.

"Yes" is the story of a man who lives in rural Austria, a scientist with an overactive imagination, and a psychologically oversensitive nature. His friend, a real-estate agent, sells a highly undesirable plot of land to a Swiss couple, a man retiring from a successful career as a power-station architect, and his female companion, a middle-aged Persian woman. The narrator strikes a friendship with the woman, and finds her his intellectual equal, or at least his emotional one. He wonders why this couple has chosen that horrible plot of land (which his friend had never previously been able to sell), and why they are building an ugly home on it.

He begins to suspect the retiring architect does not treat his female companion with as much respect as she deserves. He retreats into his home for a time, trying to get away from the world, in a fit of general agitation and anxiety, but eventually returns to his friends' company, and deepens his friendship with the Persian woman, who seems to be growing apart from her companion. The novel ends with an emotional shock, summarizing the story's happenings, and explaining it in highly dramatic terms.

This novel is unequivocally brilliant. Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) does not employ a style easy to understand at first, but it is worth every ounce of energy invested. For example, he has written this short novel with no paragraph breaks whatsoever. (The book is 135 pages long, but the type is larger than usual and the pages shorter than usual.)

Bernhard writes in an overflowing, fulsome style, not unlike Samuel Beckett, full of language, full of description, incessant, and captivating. This is exactly his strategy: he is trying to capture the reader by forcing them to expend so much energy following his text, his narrative, his story, and his unusual style, that the final words of the story will hit the reader like a ton of bricks. This is Bernhard's signature, and this novel is a fantastic example.

Any reader should try this novel who is interested in an inventive, experimental novel, but one which does not veer too far from normal story-telling. Berhard's novels, for all their roller-coaster style, are actually quite conventional, and "Yes" is a great introduction to his literary work. His vocabulary is sharp, his characters are well spun, his occasional insights are spectacular, and his stories are intruiguing. This novel is highly recommended for anyone wishing to sharpen their mind, find a new adventure after having enjoyed Beckett's works, or introduce themself to one of the finest writers of the 20th century.

This novel was my first exposure to Thomas Bernhard and I have to admit I was initially put off by its style. Some of the sentences went on for a page and half, using only commas as punctuation. After the first page or two I began to enjoy it. The plot is very simple. The narrator is a scientist who has retired to the Austrian countryside to conduct his research on antibodies. At first he believes that the isolation will benefit his studies but gradually, he works less and less, due to the great depression that comes over him. He begins to cut off all relations with the outside world, keeping only a token connection with his friend, Moritz. When he comes to recognize that his mind can only be stimulated by socializing with other people it is too late. He cannot free himself of his terrible loneliness. It's been so long since he has communicated with a human being he doesn't know where to start. All this changes when a Swiss engineer and a Persian woman show up at Moritz's house to buy a plot of land to build a home on. Talking with the woman, the narrator finds new life, but tragically, it will be shortlived.

This is a great novel. I have never seen the mindset of isolation and the depression that follows better portrayed. The style of the piece lends itself to a breathless reading. You don't notice that periods are scarce after a while. It has an exquisite flow to it. All the characters are nicely done. The translation is excellent. I really have nothing negative to say about it.

And we thought Joe McCarthy invented "McCarthyism!" Fascinating and well written. We not only learn that Attorney General Mitchell Palmer wrote the book on creating mass hysteria to assault anything one happens to dislike, but we gain a broader understanding of how easily attitudes can be swayed for egregious purposes in this country. Given that Young J. Edgar earned his stripes by implementing Palmer's plans, it's not hard to understand how he could so easily pick and choose the information he wanted to assail Martin Luther King, Jr. and scores of others he disliked. Ackerman did his homework and presented it very nicely.

I knew the content would be interesting and was pleasantly surprised to see the well crafted text. The paragraphs flowed from page to page and chapter to chapter. It was hard to put down. Well selected photos accompany the text and add even more understanding.

This is more than a bio of one man, it is a bio of the times. I did not know that Hoover cut his bureaucratic teeth on the Red Scare, so this book rounds out his portrait for me.

Ackerman's engaging prose brings to life the colorful people of the times. He presents Palmer in all his complexity. President Wilson is totally detached not only from the Red Scare but also the upcoming election where he has a son-in-law in contention. The totally obscure Louis Post is a true hero. Many great legal minds, Frankfurter, Darrow, Cardozo, Holmes and others play a role. I had not known of the eccentric millionaire socialist Lloyd before nor the colorful immigration official from California, Caminetti.

The most intriguing story of all, of course, is Hoover's. The reader learns how his character and style were formed. As a young man he got away with a tremendous breach of the US Constitution and he lied to his mentors. He knew how and when to be on and off the stage and who to play up to. He was probably given a pass for his presumed honesty, long hours of work and his youth.

I was struck by narrow the decision making. Only a few people held the reins than made life impossible for many. While the book doesn't spell it out, I would imagine people lost their homes (be they foreclosures or evictions) and children went hungry. None of the perpetrators suffered much. Hoover went on to great "success", Caminetti went on to comfortable obscurity and Wilson is heralded for his international vision. Palmer suffers somewhat but not in proportion to his deeds. The main hero is virtually unknown to history.

One line brought home to me how different the times were shortly after the First World War: ". . . a doctor told Edgar he needed to start smoking cigarettes to relax his nerves." But more important to this story of the Red Scare were the attitudes toward freedom of speech and individual legal rights that allowed wholesale abuses as the U.S. Government and the young, energetic J. Edgar attempted to remove every last threat of Communism through massive raids and deportations. As inconceivable as a medical doctor recommending cigarettes is the thought that running roughshod over legal rights on such a scale could happen without raising an immediate uproar in the press; what a difference 24 hour television news makes!

Understanding Hoover is critical to viewing the evolution of law and individual rights in America during the 20th century. For good or bad, he certainly had an impact during his half-century tenure and as Ackerman summarizes "Of all the experiences shaping him . . . none loomed larger that the Red Raids." The author gives us an excellent account of these events, the times, and important players including Felix Frankfurter, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Clarence Darrow.

Post-WW ( period is not well understood in America and our history books hardly mention how fear and loathing of terrorists (anarchists and Bolsheviks) and their (real and potential) activities led to violent over-reaction by government. Suspension of rights and rule of law, warrantless break-ins and arrests, thousands of completely innocent citizens held without charge or access to counsel in sub-standard "holding" facilities, authoritarian override of law enforcement principles and practices without regard to rights (beating of those arrested, denial of access to medical services, denial of access by the press nad watchdog organizations, etc.
A very good book and very well-written!

An excellent biography of Hoover's early years--a time that is often eclipsed by the later years when Hoover was a well established bureaucrat. Young J. Edgar looks at the circumstances--surroundings and people--who led to the formation of the man. Ackerman's descriptions of the Palmer Raids of nearly 90 years ago can't help but make the reader think of post 9/11 America and the way "we" treat our own citizens and their "inalienable" civil rights. It really makes you think. America has to find a way to protect ourselves without losing sight of what makes this country great--freedom of speech, thought, religion etc. The freedom to ask questions and be different are two of the qualities that make America great. Pick up a copy of Young J. Edgar, learn about Hoover the man and the post WWI era, and let's try not to keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

a great story of a great life by a great man!!!!!!!

This is a gripping personal memoir of survival that I couldn't put down...and a must read, especially for Eastern European emigres and their descendants (like me). The incredible resilience of one man is a metaphor for spirit of freedom that the Soviet empire besieged for decades, but never extinguished.

no words !!!! just read it ! it will make you aware of just what a great hero a human being can be !!God has blessed Bela. knowing him & his wife Susan has made me grateful!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am only 38 years old;. this story made an impact on life !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! read it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man's accomplishments in the twentieth century came tumbling one after another at a rate unprecedented in human history. But, while conquering many of nature's ways of slaughtering humans, mankind displayed an amazing willingness to develop and use "improvements" in the deliberate destruction of his fellows. That same century brought the "war to end all wars", shortly followed by an even more devastating world war, and several massive efforts at genocide on an uprecedented scale in Europe, Asia, and Africa. To a very real degree, violence against his fellows ranks as high in the twentieth century as the explosion of new knowledge.

But one of the catastrophes of that century, the rise and fall of communism, was by itself more devastating than all the others combined . . .and spread out over almost the entire century and several continents. Perhaps because of its diffusion over decades, it has failed to focus the collective attention of otherwise thoughtful men to the extent that others (e.g., WW II, the Holocaust) have. This is unfortunate because, as Johathan Rauch recently noted* "The fact remains: communism, not Nazism or racism or whatever other ism you please, is the deadliest fantasy in human history, and even Americans for all our struggles against it, have not yet looked it full in the face".

Those of us who are aviators are often privileged to peek into the lives of men and women whom we may view as peers through various "niche books" - small circulation books that provide starkly personal views into the detailed daily lives of those who survived. Examples of this valuable and often overlooked genre include Simon's "German Air Attache" (a biography of Peter Riedel, a German glider pilot attached to the German embassy in the United States in the thirties) and Joe Volmer's "I Learned to Fly for Hitler". Both these men were caught up in WW II as German aviators, albeit with very different stories. Both are thought provoking.

Now, however, comes a truly shocking revelation of treachery, cruelty, deprivation, and survival by a victim of the communist fantasy. "Youth Lost in Red Hell" was written by "one of our own", a very well regarded US soaring pilot and philanthropist, whose aviation life began in his native Hungary. He relates in painful detail a decade of suffering, and inspires by the revelation of how he survived. He not only survived, but went on to personal and professional success in every way. This slim volume is much more than a first person revelation of the horrors of what Rauch calls the "communist fantasy", but a story of courage and determination that should be on the reading list of those would seek to fully understand the history of the twentieth century. The language is plain, personal . . and gripping. With narrative and flashbacks, he tells in the first person of how flying shaped his life from a very early age; of military flying in WW II; of imprisonment - twice - by the Russians; and of torture, solitary confinement, a brush with suicide, and years of slave labor.

It's a rare and illuminating view of the dark underside of communist totalitarianism.

*Rauch, Johathan; The Atlantic Monthly, November, 2003 p 28

Very highly recommended reading, Bela Gogos' Youth Lost In Red Hell is an autobiography story of survival under the most brutal conditions. Following one young man's service in the Royal Hungarian Air Force, and Bela's horrific ordeal in the mines of Arctic Russia (a nightmare so enduring that only his faith in the Almighty could sustain him), Youth Lost In Red Hell is a gripping and true tale of horrific tragedy and the indomitable human will to survive.