Reviews Books

Touched is a novel of small town Mississippi in the 1920's. The humid, atmospheric setting is invaluable to the novel. The narrator is a young girl who was sold to an older man as his bride. Their relationship is at first violently abusive. As the story progresses, relationships change, lives change, the town itself changes. It is a wonderful look at the best and worst of humanity. Carolyn Haines is a fabulous writer. Her characters become part of your life. What a gift!

I love Carolyn Haines!!! Especially when she writes in this genre. I do enjoy the Sarah Booth Delany books as well, but it is like comparing a fine wine to Kool-Aid!
When the author writes in this genre it is always tough, life then was never "pretty" or easy, yet she counters it with characters who are gracious.
The only critism was the ending, a bit too abrupt. Or perhaps I just did not want it to end??

This book is different than the Carolyn Haines mysteries I have read, and is just as enjoyable. Touched is written in beautiful language, and I felt as if I were right there in the thick Mississippi summer heat, felt the heavy air just before a thunderstorm would hit. She knows how to weave a story so that you just want to keep on going.

I am glad I stumbled across this author and her books!

Ya never know what your gonna get. Touched is one of those books you think about at work...because you want to get home and finish it. I love it when Southern authors can make you feel the heat and humidity with their words; parts of this book reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird (because of the place descriptions and the weather.)This is actually a quick read but you find yourself slowing down to savor the story. A five star book through and through!

Carolyn Haines' descriptions are so vivid and powerful that I felt I was walking on the road or actually sitting in the room with her characters. There were times the hairs on my arms just stood up or my heart was breaking with them. If Carolyn Haines was attempting to reveal the narrow mindness of people in small towns of the South, my opinion is She Nailed It. If she was trying to awaken compassion in her readers She Nailed It. Her characters took my heart. I am having flashbacks of times in her story and I am in the exact same spot with them I was while reading the book. I would recommend this as a wonderful read. It hurts but it certainly makes one think. I am so glad I read it. I believe it awakened a compassion in me which will remain a lifetime.

This is so packed with details that I am always searching for. It's awesome, it's so cool. It has everything that you need to know about the X-files, I have nothing but praise for the author. I love the fact that it told so much about all of the characters and stuff, and it's just so great that I recommend if you're as obsessed as I am about the show, to go and buy it. It's definitely worth the price. Again, really great book!!!

I thought that the book had alot to give and I realy liked it. If any one has a good X-files book tell me what it is called

Absolutely, positively, without a doubt the best and most complete reference book that has ever been published on THE X-FILES. This incredibly detailed and beautifully illustrated book covers everything you ever wanted to know about THE X-FILES but were afraid to ask! It is a massive undertaking that covers everything in easy to use A-Z alphabetical format. Every entry cites the episode it came from and every character has the actor's name. Say for example, in the letter (B): you will find lengthy entries for everything from Bear ("Ice") to Bay Area Carpeteers (the Chinese employer of Shuyang Hsin in "Hell Money") and Big Blue ("Quagmire"), from Babcock ("Gethsemane") to Bright White Place ("Nisei") and Biodiversity Project ("F. Emasculata") and tons of entries in between. It is also a very timely book as it covers all previous 4 seasons. I also love the classy look of the book, the good-grade paper and the typeset inside and, especially the price. Oh, how could I forget the illustrations! No more reused stock photos (that we've all seen in every magazine), but the coolest artwork enhances the book. Wait until you check out Flukeman, Mama Peacock and Dr. Zama! THE X-CYCLOPEDIA is a BIG book (with thousands of entries) and for only $15 it's a better deal than the 2 or 3 X-Files magazines I buy each month that total more than $15. If you call yourself an X-Phile, then you don't want to be without this DEFENITIVE reference book to the series! This is THE book of the X-FILES, and I highly recommend it.

This is definitely a 'must have' book for all X-Files fans! Every person, place, company name, historical reference or 'you name it' ever mentioned in seasons 1-4 is covered here! Also serves as an episode guide! Mine stays right next to me whenever I am watching the reruns! Get it...now!

This is the COMPLETE reference guide to my favorite TV show. Idon'tthink the authors missed a thing in this book...it is absolutely mind-boggling to see so many entries. From A to Z, The X-Files has never before been put under such focused, affectionate, and meticulous scrutiny. The X-CYCLOPEDIA is the ULTIMATE reference book on the series and if I only had $15 in my pocket and could only buy one book about THE X-FILES, then it would be this one. Hands down, this is THE best reference book on THE X-FILES ever written. I give it two thumbs up, four stars, or whatever critics use as a measuring stick. No X-Phile should be without it! The truth is no longer OUT there...it is IN the X-CYCLOPEDIA!

If you think you know EVERYTHING about the best show on television, you're wrong. These guys pull up obscure info and quiz you on it, drawing not only from the episodes but from interviews, books, and magazines. This is a great book and a must for an X-Phile's library! My only complaint: after reading Phil Farrand's lighthearted Nitpicker's Guide, the authors of this book seem really critical. I mean, what's up with their review of "War of the Coprophages"? Lighten up! Other than that, of course, diehard fans will cherish this book.

It seems everybody is doing an episode guide, but this book is different...it is all trivia, behind-the-scenes, and nitpicking. Loads of fun if THE X-FILES is your weekly fix. My son and I used it as a game to keep us occupied on a flight from NYC to San Diego as we tested each other's knowledge of our favorite TV show. I highly recommend this book...Must reading for X-Philes

Over 1,000 questions from the first three (3) seasons of my favorite TV show in a challenging format to test the gray cells of my brain. How would I describe this book: An X-Files version of JEOPARDY! More than just something to read...a book to play and damn well worth the $$$. I highly recommend it to any die-hard X-Phile

I've always considered myself an X-pert. None of my online friends (or real life for that matter) has ever been able to stump me on X-Files trivia. I'm completely addicted to the show and have 15 books.

This one is definately one of the best, pointing out many of the nitpicks and netpicks we've philes have already discovered in addition to new ones that sent me back to look for them. The trivia is extremely difficult and interesting.

I recommend this book to all philes who think they know it all. Take a few months to memorize this book and then you will know it all.

My brother got me this book for my birthday two years ago. It is my bible and my life (kind of sad, actually!) Anyways, it's really good and like that other guy said, if you take a few months to memorize it, you'll the X-Files Genius and you can impress your friends with little tidbits of knowledge. For example, what's Scully's home phone number? I'm not telling.. get it and look it up yourself! Note: good book for diehard fans!

We Think The World Of You is basically a tale of "you don't
get what you want you get what you get". In the case of Frank
he wanted Johnny but ends up with a dog named Evie. An amusing
and sly look at some working class personalities and carry on.

Fantastic book !

John

First published in 1960, this book is a delicious souffle, which J. R. Ackerley has whipped to perfection. It tells the hilarious story of the love triangle involving Frank, a buttoned-down civil servant, Johnny, the working class guy he's in love with, and the beautiful, headstrong Evie. As the story opens, Johnny has been sentenced to a year in jail for breaking and entering, and Frank is worried that this will give Johnny's pregnant wife, Megan, the chance to freeze him out of Johnny's life altogether.

But in the end it's the beautiful Evie that precipitates the final crisis, forcing Frank to go through some painful self-discovery along the way. Ackerley's tone is pitch-perfect throughout. An offbeat book that is completely hilarious.



Did I mention that Evie is a German shepherd?

It would be hard to make the case that WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU is by any means a major work, but why should that lessen your fun? Ackerley's novel is very much a surprise in its relegation of its homoeroticism (dealt with very honestly and matter-of-factly) to the background; the protagonist's homosexuality is treated as simply a matter of course rather than as the center of concern, and what gets greater attention is his complicated relationship with his lover's family and dog.

The narrator himself is a terrific creation: sneaky, pompous, arrogant, and yet also somewhat likeable despite it all. And so too are the lover's parents and the dog herself--it all has the ring of reality about it. This is a minor delight, but a delight nonetheless.

This fantastic piece of high art just gets funnier and funnier and more blackly though generously hilarious with each successive page. Brilliant.

It's practically impossible to imagine a book like this being published in today's publishing atmosphere, but thankfully, NYRB is around to buck that trend. I mean what editor today would manage a straight face upon opening a proposal about a middle-aged gay man taking care of the irrepressible dog of his working-class lover who's in jail? But as usual, with any work of art -- craft, talent, intelligence, compassion -- this remarkable work is so much more than that. Around its droll premise, Ackerley found a way to brilliantly expose the pettiness of people, regardless (or precisely because) of their social standing. The dog, which is just as vividly alive as each of this novel's (bipedal) characters, is really only it's lovable catalyst. But finally, what makes this work astounding is how it slyly and assuredly gets funnier and funnier and more blackly though generously hilarious with each successive page. A real snicker of a book.

This final entry--1988 marks its long-delayed arrival--in a lengthy career (starting in the mid-1940s) of scant fiction marks the end of the postwar, triumphalist, yet marginalized, Midwestern Catholic parish--and notably here, rectory--intrigues that Powers excelled at conveying. His scale, being so focused, gains accuracy and depth by its concentration upon detail. Like a model railroad set, the 1:150 (or whatever!) ratio means painstaking attention to fidelity. Such realism to the untutored eye appears grotesque or caricatured, but to an aware observer reveals a nearly exact fit of form with content.

I give it four rather than five stars as I have re-read (and reviewed here, "Morte" and the thirty stories in their original three volumes as well as the collected reissue) all of Powers recently, and I believe that his many strengths as a writer are at times clouded slightly by his tendency towards oversubtlety. A forgivable fault in an era of so many authors straining for the obvious or what critics call "overdetermining" their subject, but Powers tends in all his work towards lengthy passages where not much goes on at all, but in which an editor could have polished the presentation and refined the craft even further. Powers appears to have been his own worse enemy and his own most scrupulous critic, on the other hand. Be it as it may, Powers makes nearly all of his peers look hasty, scattered, and undisciplined by comparison.

Action over the course of a priest's youth, coming of age, and gradual rise from curate to administrative assistant (when that word did not connote a secretary or receptionist) and then pastor comprises the narrative. Less verve here than the worldlier, more urbane Fr Urban had, but perhaps in his principled if compromised (the whole crux of the tension) fidelity to the needs of separating "Church from Dreck" Powers reveals that the need for reform Fr Urban realized while Vatican II was still in session (so to speak) by the end of the decade became all the more apparent as the slow slide downhill accelerated. Set by its conclusion around 1968, if offhandedly, the Catholic Worker roots of Powers and his conservative radicalism stand his fictional main character in good stead as priests wander off, parishioners ignore crusty priests' reprimands, malls open on Sundays, the hillbilly's war machine thunders on in the small town press, and guitars with cant supplant chant.

This novel, like his earlier (sharing with it a clumsy if rarified referential title) "Morte d'Urban," (1962), suffers from arid stretches, where the humor is so deadpan, the pace so true that the inert nature of our own shared experience with the clerical protagonists appears too neatly aligned. Dullness enters. A VD quarantine warning takes up one and a half pages verbatim. A few sample sermons from Father Felix (who helps out saying weekend Masses) summarize the stultifying, yet sincere, homiletics of a certain, less soundbitten, age. So with Powers, who in this novel had been criticized as a man out of time, with figures he identified with whose era had passed them by. Joe is only in his mid-forties. He seems much older. This may be a sign of now-diminished respect, when the maturity demanded of authority figures gave an earned dignity and a bit of unearned noblesse oblige to the clergy in smaller towns where the collar still mattered. Joe Hackett manages to get through the routine, and out of the limelight that had once courted his counterpart Fr. Urban, this parish priest does his best balancing God with Mammon, as the demands of a new accounting system make fundraising all the more essential, even as this pulls at the Gospel admonition that it's better to give alms in secret. How to square this with the need to make accountable freeloading parishioners when the Archbishop's needs come payable on demand? Out of such quandaries, Powers raises his own quiet art.

The need in fiction for a jolt, a spark, a spin off from the quotidian to the profound nestles, certainly, in Powers. This, however, moves along leisurely, and often nothing seems to happen for chapters at a time. Then, you understand that this accurately limns the trajectory of a recognizably human life like our own. You can see Powers' study of Joyce in his preparation of the slow ascent to epiphanies, such as Fr. Joe Hackett's finessed blessing of a scruffy draft resister who steps to tie his shoelaces while the padre finagles praying over his head and out of eyesight or earshot as the young man prepares to flee to Canada, on the pastor's unspoken advice but according to his moral example.

Re-reading this nearly two decades after it appeared, I admire Powers' critique of not only the institutional Church and its compromises with the world, but of his own admission that holy Joes only go so far in their own zeal in battling for their losing side. They must do so, vowed to do so and called by their Maker, but Powers recognizes in his own mellowing how annoying piety and phariseeism can be for the rest of us. Not for nothing is an early battle Joe engages in at the seminary, much to the disgust of some classmates and the suspicion of his rector, over the necessity of wearing a hairshirt.

Constructed in part from stories written over the past (two of which appeared in the last of his three thin story collections, 1975's "Look How the Fish Live," the novel does let its seams show. I wonder if parts of this novel were left too long on the shelf, or in hibernation. Yet, this is how Powers wrote. Very slowly, spending days pondering if a character would use the term "pal" or "chum" in referring to a confrere. Such was his state of mind, and more power to him. Probably a patron saint of scrupulous writers, if he is canonized as he deserves! His friend and colleague Jon Hassler eulogized him as "a saint with a bad temper." Hassler notes how Powers could strain so long over a detail that a reader, even an informed one such as himself, might miss the very nuanced finesse.

The extended battle of the story that was "Bill" for Joe to learn his new curate's name appears tedious and unbelievable, a shaggy-dog tale after a few pages of the many devoted to this embarrassing and rather cryptic episode. The story earlier published as "Priestly Fellowship" enters the novel mostly unchanged, but again the dive into the post-Vatican II uproar appears muted, if perhaps less dated for its lack of topicality to specific changes so much as the persistent lack of clerical fidelity. Yet, as the novel lengthens, the episodes do build upon possibilities tucked into these two stories, and while they unfold in off-handed and perhaps overly-controlled fashion, they are truer to the texture of everyday life for being so controlled. Holiness comes, if at all, minutely slow. The lack of histrionics or forced symbolism remains despite the uneven pacing in his longer works Powers' greatest talent. Powers knew when and how indirect first-person voice carried his stories; his shift in and out of his protagonist's minds is at its best in the imagined reverie Joe lets himself into as he pitches in the yard with Bill to let off steam. As with Urban's similarly prosy--both exaggerated and ordinary-- temptation at Belleisle in "Morte," the priestly heroes let their deepest selves emerge when they pretend they are just like the rest of us. Powers, and we, know better.

A final word, quoted from one of his students in Commonweal on his death in 1999. In the novel, out of his collar on a much-needed vacation, Joe passes himself off at the hotel bar as working for a "big concern," in "life insurance." The firm? "Eternal." Sort of a multinational, he admits, although he works out of a local "branch office." Powers explained when asked in class why he wrote so much about the clergy, and if he was anticlerical. "I'm not anticlerical. I simply look for a story that elucidates truth. If a human being buys an insurance policy, that's not much of a story. But when a priest buys an insurance policy, there's something going on that needs to be said and I want to say it." It took him nearly fifty years to write it.

Anyone who has not read J.F. Powers is missing a major American voice in letters. This review will not be adequate to even speak of his skill.

Complete lives are sketched with the faintest of references, such as a family who the hero, Father Joe Hackett, brings from the city to remind his comfy parishioners of the trials of the poor (shades of the "holy poverty in the city" mantra so common from my youth). He tells their entire story with three unconnected lines sprinkled as a leitmotif throughout the narrative.

The hero's interior monologue is both revealing, and surprising. Throughout the novel faint points of challenges and grace (and simple, just-sufficient grace) carry the reader along with Father Joe's eventual conversion (rededication?). This is the story of a bumbling soul who eventually inhales the breath of the Divine.

Every person I've ever given a J.F. Powers book to has thanked me (Catholics and non-Catholics alike). Highly recommended, for this is monumentally great literature.

It is nothing short of a tragedy that more readers aren't familiar with J.F. Powers. This book is truly brilliant. Powers is at heart more craftsman than contemporary novelist, which is doubtless why he only published two novels. Wheat That Springeth Green is unlike anything else I've ever read. It's that rare novel that achieves perfection.

Joe Hackett, for all his faults, is one of the most fully-realized and sympathetic characters in contemporary fiction. As he matures, so does the book: from his hilariously overblown pretensions at the seminary, to his ennui and malaise as a pastor, to his subtly glorious final redemption.

In the final analysis, the book is not so much satire as fable about goodness. Despite being about the life of priests, the book is more a moral fable than a simply Catholic one: it's about how to do good in a world where it all seems futile. Joe Hackett is a cynic, but he's also at heart an idealist and optimist. So is J.F. Powers.

I read it in the early fall, a perfect time of year for me to read this sort of book, as it reminded me of my early years as a student at a Catholic elementary school in the suburbs. The book follows the life of a Catholic priest named Joe Hackett who struggles with faith and politics and more than anything else the shattering mundanity of his suburban life. Tree-lined streets, shopping malls, station wagons, vinyl siding, and wall to wall carpeting are Hackett's foils in a book that manages to be charming, melancholy, and very funny at the same time. Reading the book turned out to be a great way to spend a few September weeks. If anyone out there happened to enjoy The Sportswriter and Independence Day by Richard Ford, then you will enjoy this book as well.

The best of the series of books published by The New York Review of Books are all the works of J.F. Powers, who died in 1989. Powers' novels and stories are almost entirely concerned with Catholic clerical life in the midwest. I hadn't read his last novel, Wheat That Springeth Green, and I was happy to find that the new edition contained an introduction by the author's daughter, Katherine Powers. Wheat That Springeth Green is every bit as fine as Morte D'Urban, his first and only other novel written some 25 years earlier, and a National Book Award winner as well. In its treatment of character and plot the latter novel is theologically perhaps even more complex.

Joe's character is cast from the first pages: as a toddler he gets attention from his parents' friends merely for declaiming at a party "I go to church!" We also learn of his parents' antipathy towards the parish priest's intoning on the subject of the "Dollar-a-Sunday Club," an attitude that Joe will inherit, and which becomes a theme that will be played out in a number of surprising ways. We also sense something of his aloofness in these first chapters as well. He doesn't keep up with many friends, but he does seem to know the value in keeping up appearances: "Joe just smiled at Frances and everybody, so they couldn't tell how he really felt about being in the sack race..." Joe is a good athlete, even in grade school, and the race he really wants, but doesn't get, is the sprint.

Much of the story revolves around Joe's relation to money, so that even an early adventure (described in nearly pornographic detail) involving his first adult relations with women is later understood to be subsumed by his larger pecuniary obsessions. His sexual sins, or at least the memory of them, turn out to be something of a red herring: at the seminary he asks his instructor, "Father, how can we make sanctity as attractive as sex to the common man?" a question that (rightly) earns him nothing but mirth from his fellow seminarians. We are given hints that as Joe grows older he succeeds in overcoming his youthful scrupulosity. After a stint at Archdiocesan Charities he is assigned to the parish of St. Frances - a name shared by his childhood infatuation and a co-traveler in that youthful adventure. So as far as sex is concerned, there is in his maturity there a sense that all is right with Joe, if not the world. That this is the case is dramatically reinforced by the nearly hopeless entanglements of an ex-seminarian, some of which leads to misplaced retribution that Joe patiently, even faithfully endures. These episodes are magnificently structured, displaying in Joe's life a kind of fate that is worked out through choices made less in freedom than with a concern for propriety and in service to principles that are neither his own, nor of the church in which, as he says in other circumstances, he does so much hard time.

Other obstacles to holiness, as perhaps they always must, remain. Although his basic attitude is good, the reader realizes that the young Father Hackett has refused one halo in favor of another when he refuses to toady up to either the priest in his parish or to the archbishop in his archdiocese. Money matters are everywhere in evidence: the rectory built by Joe; bribes offered by parishoners; purses collected on behalf of retiring priests; inheritence; a collection drive that is farmed out to a private firm - in which Joe will take no part. All this points to beyond the contradiction in one man's character to a paradox that is funamental to our very being. How do we care for an abundance which is most fully ours when we least consider it our own?

Joe's misappropriation of his own nature, and indeed human nature, leads to a truly heinous transgression in one of the final chapters. That this transgression is committed and then resolved in secret, without comment from Joe or even the narrator, points toward a God who is as truly all merciful as he is unnoticed even by lesser beings working on his behalf. I would guess that the true thorn in Joe's side is also Powers', and while reading I several times wondered whether the crux of the story wasn't inspired by his frustration at watching baskets and plates passed through the pews, week in and week out, for a lifetime.

Very highly recommended.

It couldn't be better said.

This book is pure enjoyment. What a wonderful command of the language from this former English professor! Insightful and reflective, this book is about so much more than the obvious. Though perhaps the title is not that far amiss...

My only "criticism" would regard the desire to see more of the photographs to which Adams refers or describes in detail. He gives us very few opportunities to understand what he says by looking at the picture itself.

A wonderfully written book about the wonders of photography written by a wonderful writer with a wonderful eye and a wonderful brain.

This book has been of great assitance to me in my teaching and creative practice over the years. It has been a source of inspiration and motivation allowing me to continue working with my cameras and photography, at the same time reconciling different ideas about 'money', 'ideas', 'freinds', 'teaching' etc to enable me to maintain my faith in what I do.

The essays on teaching and money in particular have helped me clarify my position as both an artist and teacher, I highly recommend this book to anyone considering teaching or photography as a career.

If you are not connected with any photography/art community, this book is for you. If none of your friends has an MFA, and if you are in need of someone who can speak intelligently about photography as art, then again, this book is for you. Robert Adams' writing is clear, concise, and insightful. Adams tells us why we photograph, for example, why we photograph landscapes. The answers include: because the images are of "emblems of a land" (pages 146 and 163), because our photographed subjects redefine us and is part of our biography (page 15), because art is "specifics made universal" (page 120), and because "art is a discovery of harmony" (page 181). Adams consoles photographers who come to realize that spending ten years doing photography won't necessarily result, e.g., in a contract for preparing a coffeetable book: "[t]hey may or may not make a living by photography but they are alive by it" (page 15); and the experience of having an exhibit where the photographer "stand[s] through the opening of an exhibition to which only officials have come." (page 16). Adams reveals the secrets of some of the masters, e.g., Weston: "limbs and torsos . . . treated as shapes to be enjoyed as one might the sight of a smooth stone" (page 64); and Paul Strand: "he worked off axis as if it were a moral principle . . . but usually just slightly off axis." (page 81) Robert Adams offers some critiques of the masters, e.g., of Paul Strand: "[o]ff-centering is used here . . . it begins to seem formulaic (page 87); and of Ansel Adams: "I have been derivative of myself for fifty years." (page 116). Robert Adams' book is a stand-alone book, that is, it does not require a knowledge of literature, art criticism, or history. The book is for the layperson. Another fine, insightful book on photography criticism is Light Readings by A.D. Coleman. A remarkable bit of insight by A.D. Coleman, for example, concerns his view of the typical amateur (page 164): "Typically, a snapshot of someone's relative at Grant's Tomb will show the relative too far from the camera to be identifiable and Grant's Tomb too close to be recognizable . . . Their charm and poignancy derives specifically from their failure to communicate . . ."The writings of Robert Adams and A.D. Coleman may be contrasted with the poetic commentary David Wallace (in Morley Baer's The Wilder Shore) and with the "writing" of Sally Eauclair in The New Color Photography and New Color/New Work. The writings of David Wallace and Sally Eauclaire are silly, and sometimes very silly, and serve only to draw attention to the words printed on the page instead of serving to invoke new concepts and connections in the mind.

Most of the book doesn't really respond to the title, but Robert Adams writes in a very engaging manner and talks about issues that most photographers will find interesting. I found particularly interesting his discussion of famous photographers and their aesthetic philosophy. This is not a book for the casual photographer, but for the photographer who is interested in photography's background, or a collector who'd like to better understand the photographer as artist, this book is terrific.

I'm working with several students in junior high to help them increase vocabulary for the SSAT test. This book helps teach the new words in context and lets them learn in a way that is more familiar to them. Love the book!!!

I am a 7th grader of a middle school, and this is what I think of this outstanding book. This book had a very interesting way of teaching... Instead of a textbook, this book was made into a chapter book with several excellent stories about adventures with three kids and a gargantuan, black cat. The stories were well put together and the advanced words fitted in perfectly. I shared my ideas with my family, and we bought more books of the same series. I think younger kids should just read the book for the stories if the words are a bit too complicated for them to remember, but I'm sure that they will enjoy it. Readers will no longer be oblivious about grammer. As a matter of fact, they might even excel in the field of grammer and writing. Anyway, to me, the words in the book were extremely easy to understand, because they were so well placed, that the context clues made the definitions very clear and obvious. There was also a glossary in the back that gave the definitions to the bold-faced words. Unfortunately, the glossary did not have definitions to all of the words, but if you have a dictionary, you should have no problem. Overall, this was a fantastic book leaving me craving for more.

I used to work as a professional SAT Reading coach, making big bucks; the key issue for most of my students was vocabulary. Rather, VOCABULARY. (The other is slowing down and thinking as--not after--they read.)

Many questions on the SAT reading section amount to vocabulary questions.

What this means is that if you want to improve your SAT scores, if you are an ambitious student trying to get into one of the top schools, there is no two ways about it: you have to study vocabulary.

And study vocabulary.

And study vocabulary.

You cannot study simply one book, or even one series of books. You have to study several series.

However, the Princeton Review Word Smart series is the best that I know of. You should start here. Even if you think you have a good vocabulary, start here just to be on the safe side, and you can move on later.

You would recommend studying any of the vocabulary books that I've ever seen--but I recommend mastering the Word Smart series. These really are by far the best--if you are shopping here, it probably means you need these books.

If you were one of my students, your parents paying lots of money, I would force you to master these books, and I would ride you like a horse until you did. And then your scores would come up, your parents would love me and tell all their friends, and I would get more jobs and more money. That's how it works.

Anyway, these are certainly the best vocabulary books on the market. Even if you're studying vocabulary for some other reason, these are probably still the best.

Good luck!

I am 11 years old and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, both as a story and as a no-stress way to learn new vocabulary. I am actually using the many words I learned in the book ~ it's easy because of the manner in which the book is written! I even enjoyed the quizzes at the end of each chapter ~ they were fun. I would save this book for after I had done my other work (I am a homeschooler) because I enjoyed this book so much. It was my inspiration to get finished with the other things so I could get back to this story!

The book is about three kids and a cat who have worldwide (and outer space!) adventures that lead them away from their real goal, which is to find Bridget's parents. You learn the new vocabulary from reading it in the context of their conversations. No memorizing lists! Great fun!

I bought this tape for my elementary age niece and two nephews. They have played this tape for weeks every night at bed time. They even fight over who gets to listen to it in the car. All of their vocabulary had sky rocketed. They are using "big" words properly and have no problem correcting the adults when we use them wrong. The way the new words are weaved into the stories give the kids the handle to truly understand what the word is, and what the correct usage is for any given situation. My sister and I are so impressed with this tape. We wish there were more of these.

It's been 15 years and Scott Adams shows now signs of slowing down or the ckind of burnout that caused Bill Watterson to retire from Calvin and Hobbes. Thank God! Because Dilbert remains the most consistently funny comic strip in the papers. A daily dose of wry, sarcastic wit that is daily bread to those of us toiling away in an office environment.

The title of this book says it all...who hasn't wanted to smack the person reviewing us upside the head and ask them what the hell were they thinking when they wrote it. Reviews, marketing, computers, stupid bosses...it's all to be read and mocked in Scott's latest collection.

It was beginning to look like Scott Adams would run out of material for Dilbert, but the corporate world just keeps spinning. Words.. is a new high level in corporate mayhem. From Dogbert the headhunter to the genius garbage man and of course Catbert the evil HR manager they are all here. We learn that "plundered" is now called "enhanced stock holder values." The pointy hair boss gets a body double for safety, and Dilbert invents a robot clone to double his visibility. It's another swipe at office management and the minions who toil our lives away in cubicles. Buy a 2nd copy and mail it to your pointy hair boss. Better yet, buy a 3rd copy and mail that one to your HR Catbert.

One of the reasons I like this one so much is because it contains the comic strips that I always read in the paper last year. These are a few of the reasons why you should buy this book.

Toxic Tom
Dilbert as a sheep
Wally being lasy a usual
Dogbert's Tech Support
The Consultick
Dilbert's mood altering drugs
The furniture psychic
The new dress code which is barrels
My favorite comic which is the one where Wally researches Greek names for a new product

This are a bunch of really great comics and they are a must buy for all Dilbert fans.

This is another very funny and spot-on book from Adams. Some of the characters like Ratbert and Dogbert don't appear as much, but Wally comes on strong and new characters are introduced like ConsulTick.

What's funny is the resonant note that Dilbert has struck with so much of corporate America. Having been an employee at a major Fortune 500 company for many years myself, I was convinced that Adams was talking about my company, and so did everyone else, although the resemblances at times could be almost eerie.

Adams's cartoons of the more absurd and ridiculous aspects of corporate culture (which at times seems to be about 99% of it) continue to provide much needed comic relief for hapless cubicle dwellers everywhere, and this is another funny book from Adams that shouldn't disappoint his fans.

It's more Dilbertine for the addicted like myself and allthough there are a couple of minuses to mention the level of hilarity stays high as always. And how could it not? The inspiration from the corporate world keeps coming through in tsunami waves.

While one of the most cult characters in the Dilbert series (Wally) gains even more of the spotlight other equally legendary characters like Ratbert but above all Dogbert himself keep getting lesser and lesser appearances. That's a pity actually as especially these two have offered unforgettable moments in the past. Another thing connected with these two fading somewhat is that we get fewer moments of Dilbert at home and more in the office. Tha creates somewhat of an imbalance which was not present in the initial installments of the series.

All in all though, this gets adequately compensated by Adam's invincible humor and the introduction of new characters who might have less of a lifespan in comparison to Ratbert and Dogbert but who provide for some freshness nevertheless.

Other than that it's Wally galore to the max. Wally has been the secret ace of this comic all along. This is cynicism at its very best and its most hardcore. The lines coming out of Wally's mouth are surreal.
The Dilbert series continues to be a classic.

AS A BLUES HISTORIAN AND GUITAR COLLECTOR I HAVE MANY BLUES RELATED BOOKS IN MY COLLECTION. THIS BOOK HOWEVER MUST RATE AT THE TOP OF THE PILE. WHAT FANTASTIC FLOWING STORY LINES, MAKING IT HARD TO PUT DOWN. IT GIVES A GREAT INSIGHT INTO THE WAY OF LIFE IN THOSE EARLY DAYS OF THE BLUES. THE PLACES HE HAS SEEN AND THE PEOPLE WHO HE GOT TO KNOW & MEET IS JUST MIND BLOWING. ANYONE WHO IS NOT BLUES MINDED SHOULD READ THIS BOOK JUST TO UNDERSTAND HOW HARD IT WAS IN THOSE DAYS JUST TO LIVE AND PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE.(I BET HE THOUGHT EVERONE IN THE MODEN WORLD WAS SOFT)TRULY ENJOYABLE.

Fans of blues music and musicians will relish this autobiography of Delta bluesman Edwards, which charts his rise to fame and his survival in a critical musical world. His first-person observations of the changing blues style and field are especially meaningful given that so many blues titles are not written by participants in the field.

Honey and his astute collaborators have given us the genuine article: a poignant, detailed, uproarous chronicle of what Robert Palmer called the"Deep Blues," the Delta tradition from which all other blues styles emanate. If you've heard Honey sing either in person or on his fine recordings, you will hear the voice you read. He offers dozens of unforgettable moments, from the first sounds he ushers from a broken-necked guitar to his mother's death to the death of Robert Johnson, that are alive and chilling. My only criticism is that the photographs featured in the book are spartan, contemporary views of critical sites in this artist's life. More historical photography would have enhanced the text. The publisher of this well-designed softcover has made the text relaxingly readable. After my first 50 pages, I wanted to purchase all of Honey's recordings and read more about him. He is an articulate, funny, precise chronicler of his own life. If only I could do the same with my own life! First rate.

This autobiography succeeds memorably on several levels. Told in spare, moving words, it provides a vivid picture of life in the Mississippi Delta long before the civil rights movements of the '50s. In addition, it's a kind of African-American "On the Road," told from the perspective of one who crisscrossed the Southern United States, scuffling to make a living playing the blues. And finally, it's a terrific history of the blues, told by a man who made a significant musical contribution himself and who played with nearly all the essential artists of the '30s and on.

Edwards, born in the Delta around 1915, worked the fields as a kid before he learned to play the guitar and began hoboing around the South. He rode the rails, played in innumerable small towns, and polished his craft. Along the way, he hung out and played with the likes of Sunnyland Slim, Big Walter Horton, Little Walter Jacobs, Robert Junior Lockwood, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and yes, Robert Johnson. The book describes how these architects of the modern blues passed songs, licks, and stories back and forth, keeping a form that relies so heavily on tradition dynamic and vital.

A major strength of the book is Edwards' distinctive voice, transcribed by his collaborators to retain its distinctive rhythms and dialect. The book's title sums up his attitude. His memories include violent death, physical and emotional loss, and great material want. Still, you sense strongly that he wouldn't have had his life any other way. His narrative is devoid of self-pity, but it never glosses over the difficulty of the times he endured, which included stints in prison.

The book concludes with useful appendices that define key terms and offer capsule biographies and discographies of musicians Edwards encountered. A good bibliography is also included. Highly recommended for those interested in the blues and in American social history. Great read.

What a life! 82 years old Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards is one last Bluesmen alive that knew Robert Johnson but that is not the basis of the book. Edwards has lived a life that makes anyone really understand what the Blues is all about and other bluesmen back in the 1930's and 40's who shaped blues music.

Honeyboy's tales gives the reader his firsthand accounts of plantation life, the 1927 Mississippi River flood, vagrancy laws, makeshift courts, the racial problem and economics of southern blacks and the Depression.

This book came about because of the stories that Honeyboy told his manager of 25 years, Michael Robert Frank, who is also the founder of Earwig Records and Janis Martinson, a freelance writer. Martinson did the transcribing and left Honeyboy's speech patterns intact. My friend, Travis Brown is from Tennessee and after reading this book remarked that reading the words of Honeyboy took him back "home". Martinson also did the research and wrote the three appendices that appear in the back of the book. Want to find out what the "killin' floor" is (was) than buy this book.

Earwig has also issued a CD with the same title, I had that CD and Robert Johnson's in my changer while I read the book, they provided the perfect soundtrack to the theater of the mind.

Tony Houston, 1999

This book is great with details and background of each character, and has the details from each hour, so is very helpful if you don't have two straight non sleeping days to catch up.

I am a huge fan of "24" and I collect 24 merchandise. This guide does a great job in breaking down each episode. It gives you all the major points you need to understand. When I ordered this book that's what I expected. However, I didn't expect all of the extra content. The first 28 pages are full of behind the scenes info about the shows conceptual design and how it was created. There are interviews with the shows producers and with Kiefer Sutherland himself. I highly recommend this to any fan of "24". It is a must-have.

This book is full of great photos and a real treat for 24 fans. The entire book is mostly photos and arranged by season. There are photos from the show and off set. I loved it and think that all 24 fans would enjoy it.

Two pages of information per episode: timeframe with the key events, research files, additionel intel and photo's. The book also contains the profiles of the main characters of the first two seasons. A must have for the real 24 fans!

Mike and I over at 2GuysTalking:24 have been waiting for a book like this to come out for years now. Our only complaint is why so long? This is a gorgeous book to have in your collection and is chalk full of all kinds of 24 data, background info, interesting tidbits and if that's not all, tons of great photographs to supplement.

The look and feel of the book is something you really want to get your hands on and keep. Its got more of a "Tab Newspaper" style feel to it then your ordinary book. The pages are laid out nicely and each page represents one day in the life of Jack Bauer! Each day has its own timeline of events similar to our own "24 in 60" segment we do in our podcast. A great reference guide if you need to go back to look something up.

Each day featured on a page layout also has a section where they link interesting pieces of information that you might not already know about 24. For example, the $200,000 Mason was accused of skimming in the first season is linked to his son in the second season. Pieces like that really present a whole new perspective to the show that you may not catch when watching it.

Mega Kudos goes to Tara DiLullo for writing such a great book. You definitely want to get this in your collection. Mike and I were so impressed with the book we decided to have Tara on the show to ask her more about what went on behind the scenes and what to expect in the future. Check it out at [...].