Sports Books

Sensei Dollar has provided a key into the true essence of Uechi-ryu Karate and the brotherhood that surrounds the Kenyukai (Shinjo - Strong Fist Group). It is a blessing to have this abudance of information and guidance provided to us. If you are a serious practioner of Uechi-ryu Karate, this book will provide great insight and instruction. It is highly recommended. Domo Arigato Gozaimasu!

This book was quiet an undertaking! Allen Dollar wrote a very enlightening account of karate on Okinawa and its history. This is important as most people involved with karate have only superficial knowledge of its historical origins from China and its development by including ancient Okinawan techniques. Brought to light, are the accomplishments of many masters of various styles on Okinawa and especially Uechi Ryu karate. It serves as a tribute to the Uechi & Shinjo families that made it possible for so many to learn this unique martial art around the world. There has not been any other work about this subject that covers such in depth details of Okinawan Karate and history.

I am not practicing Uechi ryu but I can confidently say that this is one of the best (if not the best) book ever written on the subject! It covers everything you need to know about Okinawa Karate from its original root from China, the history of Uechi ryu, and the excellent technical section. Three major katas, Sanchin, Seisan, and Sanseiryu, are thoroughly demonstrated.

Great book. Regardless of what style you are practicing, you will learn something from this wonderful book.

Here is an excellent addition to books regarding this not-so-well known style of Okinawan karate. Alan has the experience and connections to gather great info and puts it together in a very readable format that would be interesting to anyone intereted in traditional karate. Great job Alan!

Steve Hatfield
West Palm Beach Florida

Mr. Dollar does a great job tracing the lineage, training, and technique of this powerful but little known school of Okinawan karate. The flow is good and steady and the material found in here is first-rate. Investigate and documented by a real practioner trained by the real masters this book is worth every penny, so check it out!

Take a college with under 200 students, a young coach who has as much skill in self-promotion as basketball knowledge and a star player who is a scoring machine, but doesn't have a high-school diploma.

Add in the monolith that is the NCAA and top programs who are getting pushed to the brink of defeat - or are taking big "L's" - to the upstart college, and you have an absolutely wonderful book on a lost history by Kyle Keiderling.

The story centers around Bevo Francis, who scored 116 points in a game, and Rio Grande College & the journey the basketball team took from its band-box of a gym to some of the biggest arenas in the country. It also shows how the NCAA stood in judgment of the small school and ultimately did a masterful job in erasing the records set by Francis and the team from the collegiate books.

As much a history on how an underdog won under the bright lights, it also is a tale how the special interests of the major programs were served by the NCAA.

It is a must read for fans of college basketball or for those who enjoy stories on how - within an even playing field - dreams can come true.

I loved the book and found it very flattering of Bevo! I think that anyone interested in college basketball would find this book highly entertaining and informative! Unfortunately, when I asked Bevo to sign my copy, he refused and said it was unauthorized? Is this another case of someone taking advantage of Bevo?

For fans of traditional basketball -- where the tradition means tiny uniforms, lousy floors, crowded gyms, transport by station wagon, and honing skills in a barn -- this is literally one for the record books. The college with 100 students took on the establishment and won the hearts of America's basketball fans and the general public through the person of one of the sports' most tragic figures. From scoring 116 points in fron of fewer than 200 people to playing to packed arenas from Boston to Kansas City, the ride was short, not always sweet, but memorable.

'Bevo' Francis earned his nickname from his father's taste for a regional soft drink -- Bevo -- and the name passed on to his son, once Little Bevo and, in time, just Bevo. Raised in the Appalachian hills of southern Ohio, Francis was so frail as a child he missed a lot of school time. By the time he arrived at this tiny college (although most people tghink Rio Grande College is along the river in Texas, it is in southeaster Ohio), Bevo would be a married, 21-year old freshman who still hadn't finished high school. A crafty, P.T. Barnum-like coach saw fame and fortune in building a team and a makeshift schedule around a true phenom, and Bevo rewarded his faith with a 116-point performance that season that earned national attention but also caused the NCAA to disown his performances against teams not from four-year colleges.

There is some clear element of the country rube in Francis, but he comes across in this kind treatment as a bright but uneducated, malleable youth. The promotional coach turns out to be interested in showcasing Bevo's talent, at whatever the cost, running a barnstorming-like schedule against all comers. The good news is that the team generated a quarter of the school's operating budget from their appearences; the bad news is that the school turned on the team when it was clear that basketball brought a harsh media spotlight on a woefully underfunded school.

You can't help but like and feel sorry for Bevo; it is almost easier to despise or at least think little of coach Newt Oliver. After a second successful but stormy season, Oliver urges Bevo to sign a terrible contract to play the oafish role to the Harlem Globetrotters, and a life of basketball and career are finsihed before Bevo would have normally finished college.

Bevo Francis caught the nation's attention at a time when college basketball and Madison Square Garden were reeling from the point-shaving and betting scandals of the late 40's and early 50's. Like a shooting star, Francis shone brightly, but only for a very short time. He may have saved the sport and earned some kudos (and built Oliver's ego), but the NCAA, the Globetrotters, Newt Oliver, and Rio Grande treated Bevo poorly.

Times may change, but some things stay the same -- sports have strong grip on the public.

I had never heard of Bevo Francis before, and reading this story makes me wonder why. Truely a remarkable tale of a "superstar" who, along with talented teamates, took the country by storm. His story was covered nationwide, and record crowds gathered to see him.

Bevo Francis was an extremely talented, unassuming, and honest person. His coach, New Oliver, was a promoting promoter who "sold" Francis. Although the team Oliver had assembled was good, they played for a tiny, unknown school - Rio Grande College. Oliver felt that fame would come to the team if ONE player scored a lot of points.

Bevo had his "breakthru" game in Jan 1953. The national scoring mark was 87 points. Bevo had 61 points after 3 periods, when Oliver had the team pass up shots and feed Bevo, as well as foul the opponent as soon as they touched the ball to stop the clock. By the end of the game, Bevo had scored 116 points, and Rio Grande won the game 150-85. Suddenly, all Oliver's efforts to promote the team went from no response to nation-wide acclaim. In a similiar game a year later, he scored 113 points.

Despite these two "contrived" scores, Bevo was a legitimate scorer and all-around skilled player. He averaged almost 50 points a game over two seasons. The second season was entirely road games against top flight competition that Oliver arranged to maximize the exposure of his team and to generate the most income.

Bevo Francis, playing for tiny Rio Grande College in Southern Ohio, was indeed a shooting star. He averaged just under 50 points a game for two seasons and still holds the NCAA record for the most points scored in a college game (116).

As would be expected, the team was built around Francis, and he made all the headlines, as well as the covers of the major sports magazines of the day. Unfortuately, his team did not receive the credit they deserved. In 1954, Rio Grande, with an enrollment of less than 200 students, played some of the nation's best teams: Villanova, Providence, Miami (Fla.), Arizona State, Wake Forest, and North Carolina State. In January of that year, I watched the Redmen beat Butler University in Indianapolis. Bevo, coming off several weeks of appendicitis attacks, scored 48 points. At the end of the game, the Indiana fans, who know their basketball, gave the entire Rio Grande team a standing ovation; something rarely seen in college play.

Two years later, While in the Army, I had the privilge of playing on the same team as Roy Moses, a former Redmen. After listening to some of Roy's stories about touring the country with Bevo and the Redmen, I was hoping that someday somebody would write the definitive history of Rio Grande's two legendary seasons. Kyle Keiderling has done it, and it is an excellent book.

This book contains some excellent vintage race pics. The text is essentially a transcript of the video. This is a great gift for track racing enthusiasts. Makes you want to get out to the velodrome and ride!

The photos and graphic layout is very beautiful - it's great to thumb through and get a overview of the time when track cycling was the most popular sport in the US. It isn't a detailed history of the sport or of cycling in the US. So don't use this as a reference or for those hard core cycling historians.

A great book with lots of photos and interesting stories about the sixdays. A whole new approach compared to what we know about sixdays-racing in Europe. It's great for me to find photos of the French rider Alfred Letourneur who made fame and fortune in the States rather than staying in France. A must for every six-days fan!!!!!

There was a time, not really long ago, when American bicycle racers were the most highly paid athletes in the country. In the 1980's we dropped our jaws when Greg Lemond signed a contract that paid him a million dollars over 3 years. Yet even today, the total price of a Pro Tour team won't get you a major-league pitcher with a good fastball.

Back in the early 1920's things were very different. Babe Ruth was paid the then princely sum of $20,000 a year but six-day bicycle racer Frank Kramer made more. Movie stars would crowd into smokey indoor tracks and offer primes as high a $1,000 to goad racers into driving themselves ever harder as sold-out bleachers screamed with excitement. The great boxer Jack Dempsey's promoter was stunned to learn that the attendance of six-day races averaged 100,000 paying customers. At least one successful six-day racer paid cash for a house.

Now largely forgotten, there was a circuit of velodromes that went across America, stretching from Los Angeles and Salt Lake City to Newark and New York City. The racers who competed on the wooden boards of the era were an elite, highly paid group of athletes who could take on the best in the world and beat them. Among the Europeans who traveled to the U.S. to race on our tracks were Tour de France winners Petit-Breton and Octave Lapize and Italian greats Giuseppe Olmo, Alfredo Binda and Costante Girardengo. As with road racing today, Australians seemed to be natural six-day racers and the list of Aussies who did well is long, including one of the greatest of all, Alf Goullet.

A modern Tour de France rider covers about 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) over 3 weeks. In 1914 the six-day team of Alf Goullet and Alfred Grenda raced the Madison Square Garden Six-Day and set a record that still stands, 2,759.2 miles in 142 hours. These men were magnificent sportsmen and their accomplishments were prodigious.

Great writers, including Ernest Hemingway, James Thurber and Damon Runyon, were drawn to the 1920s track scene and wrote about it. In 1925 President Calvin Coolidge invited the team of Jimmy Walthour, Jr and Freddie Spencer to the White House because he wanted to meet the two cyclists whom he said competed with him for newspaper headlines.

I ask the reader to stop for a minute. Have you ever heard of these men, the Armstrongs and Lemonds of our grandfather's time? Like so much of early and mid-twentieth century Americana, this spectacular part of our past is slowly getting wiped out of our collective memory. It shouldn't be so.

Nye's visually stunning book, The Six Day Races: America's Jazz-Age Sport is an irresistible scrapbook of those exciting years when bicycle racing had a firm grip on the American imagination. Pictures of dapper men in bowler hats and starched collars watching speeding racers steam around banked velodromes instantly conjure up another time. There's Petit-Breton, winner of the Tour de France, who competed at Madison Square Garden in 1903 and 1904. Another turn of the century picture shows a young man proudly standing with a bike that rather resembles one of Graeme Obree's record machines. Is there anything new in the world? Eddie Cantor, May Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, George Burns, Gracie Allen and Jimmy Durante went to the races and Nye has pictures of them that capture the mixture of sport and glamour that the Sixes represented.

Perhaps the image that most powerfully conveys bicycle racing's place in the 1920s is one photograph from 1925 showing eight athletes, called the "Kings of Sport", who were invited to a banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York. Most of the names will be familiar: Babe Ruth, boxer Gene Tunney, swimmer and future movie star Johnny Weissmuller, hockey star Bill Cook, Wimbledon champion Bill Tilden and golfing great Bobby Jones. Sitting with the other sporting giants, as equals, are cyclists Freddie Spencer and Charlie Winter.

Accompanying the hundreds of photographs is an excellent text. Perhaps no man knows more about American cycling than Mr. Nye. An earlier book of his, Hearts of Lions was more than the best history of American cycling ever written, Nye performed an important service by interviewing many of the great legends of America's golden age of racing, several just before they passed away. In The Six Day Bicycle Races Nye puts that knowledge to good use, guiding the reader from American track racing's origins in the late 19th century through its bloom of prosperity and its slow decline with the onset of the depression.

After reading the book, I still like to go back and thumb through a few pages here and there, imagining a band playing in the infield while the racers zoom around a short (10 laps to the mile) indoor track doing their flashy, dangerous work. Reggie McNamara crashed more than 1,500 times in a career of 108 six-days that covered about 135,000 miles. I wish I could have seen that brave, strong man race. Nye's book brings me as close as I can come to that dream.

This is a wonderful book written by the man who knows American racing best, filled with pictures that have the power to get any sports fan's heart thumping.
-Bill McGann, author of "The Story of the Tour de France"

This book captures the essence of track racing in America in it's glory days. It is informative and fun to read. The illustrations are great also!
My father raced in Chicago in this era and had many tales to tell, and Nye's book captures that same essence.

I stumbled on this book at a bookstore in upstate NY, a far cry from the Houston area. As a baseball fan, it caught my eye although I had very little knowledge of Houston's MLB origins. What sold me-- at least during that quick perusal in the bookstore -- was its treatment of how Houston and NY both came into the league at the same time. After reading it, though, I'm astounded at the history and story of baseball's first major-league team in the south. The no-hitters, the futility, the tear-jerker about Jim Umbricht .... this story reeks of everything that baseball is -- good things, such as colorful characters, true fans, baseball as a game first and business second, and tragedy as well -- the real "Love of the Game" story, not that Kevin Costner tripe. Whether you know anything about Houston, the Colt 45s, or Texas, do yourself a favor and read this book. Heck, it's a human story, not just a sports story. The younger fan may not "get it," but those of us who grew up with those hot summer nights listening to baseball on transistor radios -- no matter were you lived of what team you claimed -- will enjoy the trip back.

Unlike most of the other reviewers, I grew up in Indiana but the Colt .45s were my team. When I first started following sports I wanted my own team, not the Yankees, Cubs or Reds so I picked Houston. Yes, I paid for it my entire life.

In a word, the book was amazing. I would have been the ideal subject for a Norman Rockwell painting, as I sat outside the local drugstore anxiously awaiting The Sporting News to get delivered so I could read everything about my Colts. The book filled in so many of the missing pieces for me especially on the planning before they took the field. The photographs brought to life a lot of what was only mental images of my youth.

I would highly, highly recommend this book. I know my Sixshooter Club card is around here somewhere.

An excellent and detailed history of the Colts and their origins in the planned Continental League, the National League expansion of 1961-62, and their colorful early days until they became the Astros. Lots of great photos of players, now-defunct ballparks, and memorabilia, and the real inside story of the name changes from Colts to Colt .45s to Astros. A winner all around.

Anyone who enjoys reading about the history of baseball will love this book whether one is a Houston fan or not. It is a history book and a human interest story all rolled into one.

One get's the feeling after reading this book a feeling of a little sorrow of not having the opportunity to have known some of the unusual personalities depicted in the book, especially pitcher Dick "Turk" Farrell whom obviously was an under rated but solid major league pitcher and a man of a thousand pratical jokes.

The power struggles between the men who helped bring major league baseball to Houston is a story that is almost too intriguing to be true yet is a story that is factual in every detail.

To the fan of the Houston Astros baseball franchise, this is the ultimate book on the history of the origin of the team.

Author Robert Reed definitely did his homework on this one.

I grew up and still reside in the Bayou City. I was born in 1967, two years after the Colt .45's moved from Colt Stadium into the Astrodome and changed their name to the Astros.


Even as a young child I remember having an almost mystical interest in the Colt .45's. It was a marvel to me that they could actually play basball outside in the summers in Houston. I clearly remember my little leauge days in Houston thinking about the heat and humidity and the glare of the sun.

There was never an abundance of information on the Colt .45's or pictures of the old stadium unless you heard it about it from older Houstonians or former players that still called Houston home. This book is truly the Bible of Houston baseball. It is comparitive to the Old Testament's GENISIS. I swear if you curl up on a lazy afternoon and let your mind flow with the book you will feel as though you have travelled back into yester-year and you are there at Colt Stadium, mosquitos, humidity and all.

Sadly baseball in Houston now is a joke. The Astros are the epitome of over-paid, grossly under achieving, lazy athletes. I grew up with the Dome and I would have glady gone to Colt Stadium to root on a near last place team. AT LEAST THEY TRIED AND MADE AN EFFORT. The new ballpark downtown I have nicknamed "The Coffin". With it's retractable roof "The Coffin" is either opened or closed depending on what day you drive by. Most every player inside the place is alrady dead or just going through the motions.

This book celebrates the effort, the entertainment and the energy that once exsisted in Astros history but no longer does. This is the written account of the genisis of major leauge baseball in Houston. It also includes INCREDIBLE photographs in color and black and white.

This book is NOT to be missed ! Read it !

I read this short book within a space of an hour. It is straight to the point, and is written in the style of a story. The author is a Physical Therapist and tells the story of when he was a student and he visited a senior Physical Therapist in a hospital as part of his training. He learned how to motivate someone within 60 seconds to undertake therapy by increasing importance + confidence in the patient. Although this book was essentially about how someone was able to increase his patients' motivation, this can also be applied to other areas of your life - for any goal. It is an easily understandable read and if you are looking for a way to increase motivation quick then look no further than this book.

This is a great book for anyone to learn about how to motivate yourself or others. It's in a very simple story format without a lot of exercises like other self-help books. Very good book - I highly recommend it to anyone that needs to know more about motivation.

This is a great little book. It is written in a light style that makes it easy to read and digest the principles that Jim spells out. If you have ever tried to make a change and been unsuccessful in accomplishing your goal this little book will help you to understand why you failed and how you can increase your chance of success. I found it to be helpful both with my own personal goals and in better understanding what may help to motivate my clients to achieve their stated goals.

Like any book in this genre this book will not actually help you unless your "motivated" to change your own behavior. It's simple, easy to read, and practical. It shows you the keys to changing your perspective on on how motivation actually works in yourself and others. I enjoyed it.

Being a cardiac rehab nurse and spending a lot of time each day trying to get people to change their lifestyles to create better health, this book caught my eye. After reading it, I found the principles instantly useful for me to use at work. They can help anyone get motivated to get past the barriers that keep them from making changes to improve their health. Additionally, the book is short and to the point which is good for a busy Mom like myself.

I was looking for a book as an introduction to scootering with my husky and got more than I bargined for with this.

This book is highly informative and very funny (I was laughing out loud for much of it). Covers sledding and other dog powered sports.

Highly recommended.

Walking and running simply isn't enough for our Bloodhound. The section on bikejoring is a perfect solution and she loves it - so do we! This is a well written book with an incredible insight into the canine world and their instinctual habits to lead. We gave the book as gifts to our friends and family. The recipients have Labradors, Weimaraners, and a Shepherd-Mix. Each has thoroughly enjoyed the book and has tried different types of skijoring and has loved it - as do their pets. Kudos to the authors!

I have a standard poodle that loves to run and get exercise! I picked up this book because I had seen an article on skijoring. Really enjoyed the light humor and found the training instructions excellent in building my enjoyment with my dog, Jackie. What a great way for us both to get a good workout and enjoy the outdoors.
I would recommend this book to future skijorers and dog loving couch potatoes alike!

Ski Spot Run review

This book is an excellent introduction to skijoring. It begins with the basics, including the history of the sport. It includes plenty of tips and suggestions for how to get started, ways to encourage your dog to pull and general training ideas. The section on commands alone is worth the price of admission - it lays out very clearly when to use each command and how to get your dog to execute the commands. And it seems to contain plenty of material to help both skier and dog continue to train, improve, and enjoy the sport. I also enjoyed the humor that the authors wove into the book. This made it a very easy read. The illustrations and photos are high caliber and help to convey things like how to put a harness on your dog, proper technique for skiing or running behind your dog, and recommended equipment for the sport.

I'd recommend Ski Spot Run to people interested in skijoring as well as those that simply enjoy dogs. The authors obviously care deeply for and respect dogs, and this shows through in just about every aspect of their book. I especially liked their inclusion of the dog's point of view...I seem to look at the trail a little differently now,even when I'm just out walking my dog!
It is to snow this evening and I am looking forward to taking Frannie out into our trails for a trek!!

Jeff

Smart, attractive, well organized with lots of humor, illustrations, photos and excellent information on how to get started in skijoring, canicorss or bikejoring.

Lots of useful tips and suggestions mixed with sound knowledge of dog care, training and racing.  If you're thinking of taking up skijoring, do yourself a favor and start here.

Judy Bergemann, Webmaster, sleddogcentral.com

I'm a see and learn type and have found that the vast majority of how to books for various sports are typically a waste of time. I purchased this book out of curiosity and on account of other reviews and I was not disappointed. It exceeded my expectations and I intend to take their clinics. A definite read for any advanced skier as they keep everything simple and are able to articulate their philosophy concisely.

Hi, my name is Pieter, I'm from the Netherlands. I am an intermediate skier who bought this book to get additional instruction on how to treat my skis in challenging circumstances. And yes, this book gives you most of the answers you need. Carving, steeps, powder and moguls are explained in a simple but very instructive way. The authors claim to be inspired, among others, by Harald Harb's teaching method. If you are not familiar with Harb's method, I doubt if you fully understand the meaning of all tips and tricks the DesLauriers brothers give you. Apart from that, it is a must read for all intermediate and near-expert skiers who are looking for a great ski companion.

Having read every respectable ski instruction book and watched every video available I highly recomend this book to every intermediate and above skier looking to advance. Actually beginners could profit also before the PSIA crowd confuses the simple tricks of skiing on the "new" skis. Skiing well means skiing in all snow conditions and on all types of terrain. As the Deslauriers explain,the same basic physical moves apply to all terrain and snow conditions. Read Chapter 1,then reread it. Do it again. Get it in your head and you'll raise your level several notches. This is the best instructional book in the ski world, bar none. When will they put it on video?
It is amazing that world famous extreme skiers can actually write coherently. (Was it ghostwritten?) Unlike the current crop of freeskiers, the bros. D. must have gotten a little education before opting for the skier's life.

Eric and Rob Deslauriers take you along their exciting world of skiing through a well thoughtout and easy to follow progression of tools and techniques to show you how to handle a variety of snow conditions for all types of terrain. The book covers in understandable terms how to approach different situations and what drills to practice to prepare you for any situation. In addition to the outstanding instruction each page is beautifully illustrated with the work noted ski photographer Hank DeVre.

If you are an advanced skier or ski teaching professional this is a must have book.

This book has a very, very brief chapter on the basics of edging and then it jumps directly to skiing powder, crud, steeps, trees, moguls, and air! Um, needless to say, not a book for your average beginner.

I've previously gave this book a low rating, but have now changed it because I realize this is a really good book for expert skiers. I have not tried the powder techniques because there is no powder where I am, but the crud techniques are very useful. There is no doubt the authors spend a lot of time on steeps because this is the biggest and most comprehensive section of the book. The worst section is the one on moguls because it is very short and does not provide sufficient information to rip them like a pro. Another book, "The All-Mountain Skier", provides the best mogul section I've seen so far. The air techniques are great and provide good fundamentals for anyone going to the terrain park. There is even a section on cross-country skiing for anyone interested in starting. The photos in this book will probably be the best you will ever see and they are full-color. The skiers photographed in this book are emulatable (unlike the skiers photographed in "The All-Mountain Skier"). Check out "The Skier's Edge" for b/w photos of pro-skiers. It's ashame there is no one book with all the necessary information to improve your skiing. But getting all three books will come close to such an imaginary book.

My Dad bought this book when I was a kid over thirty years ago. He never got as much out of it as I did. I'd spend hours looking at the many firearms listed in this large volume. It got me started in collecting old military arms and I refer to it still to this day.

This was purchased as a gift for a person that had been looking for it for several years; he is very pleased with it!

I highly recommend these Small Arms of the World books, due to the good coverage of Curio and Relic firearms, how you can take them apart to clean them, how they operate, pictures of individual weapons, interesting diargrams of some popular guns, and just simply the most information you are going to get on semi-automatic and full automatic firearms, at least that I can find. Seems that especially machine gun technology is some kind of restricted information somehow, at least in newer books, but at least these Small Arms books can help a former U.S. Army machine gunner like myself understand a little better how the guns I was checked out on,actually worked in principle. So, if your quest for knowledge is machine guns, then I defintely recommend these books. And if your quest for knowledge is Curio and Relic classified firearms, then especially the older versions of the Small Arms books are what you need. The newer ones kind of water down really old technology, while paying special emphasis on what was hot technology at the time, like a early seventies Small Arms will talk in depth on current American small arms like the M16, but will have minimal space on bolt action rifles, for instance.
I definitely recommend the 1969 9th edition as a good all around "get you by", if you just wanted one edition on older Curio and Reic Firearms, if you are a collector of Curios and Relics like me.

Small Arms of the World: A Basic Manual of Small Arms
is a classic. it is one of the best fireames books ever made, it is a real pity that it is out of print. they realy should rerelease it, I know I would buy it.
But until that happens I'll just have to keep getting it from the library.

If I could only have one firearms book I would choose this book hands down.

For the person interested in modern military small arms, this book is the place to start. It presents the material well, with good photographs, understandable diagrams, and interesting text. Hopefully an updated version will come out someday, but I don't think anyone will regret buying this one now. In fact, I have an older edition from the 1960's that I treasure for it's better coverage of now-obsolete firearms, special emphasis on World War 2 German designs, and more complete history of firearms through the centuries. This edition, on the other hand, gives more attention to weapons developed during the 1960's and 1970's. No doubt, after some future edition finally brings us up to date on modern high-tech weaponry this book will still be a valuable snapshot of the variety of arms in use throughout the world during the final decades of the 20th Century.

I highly recommend this book as the starting point for a good understanding of the small arms field, or as plain old good reading for the relatively technical-minded gun enthusiast.

Here is what our forefathers were doing successfully in a delightful and deadly method of fly fishing.Simple and very effective.

This book shows you how and with what.

Nemes methodically but artfully convinced me to use these flies and I now enjoy fly fishing more than ever. Must-read.

This is simply a great book. It is written with a fantastic style that makes you want to run out and tie up a bunch of softhackles and fish them the way Mr. Nemes does. The section on tiny soft hackles is important for anyone who fishes midges, tricos and other small hatches as it gives much information and options to match the hatch!

This book can only be described as charming.

I am not normally interested in older books on trout fishing - somehow they just don't seem relevant to me. There are superb modern books and authors on the subject. However I purchased this book (originally written 1975) as I am keen on soft hackled flies and every up to date text on the subject waxed lyrical about it. I was glad I did. Not only was the practical information good, but the delivery was inspiring and poetic.

Utterly charming book!

This little book is a great read--good examples of how to fish the flies and how to tie them. The section on tiny soft hackles is a nice addition. Mr. Nemes's style of writing is pleasant to read as well.

These days, you never see 'works' like this. The work that went into getting these beautigul and timeless letters. The astounding photographs that go with them. Just a treat to read. Also, a really GREAT gift to give for any baseball fan. I guarantee they've never seen anything like it.

Something to Write Home About is a really neat, quirky book that anyone who likes baseball can pick up and read anywhere, any time. It's a fun, easy read full of joy and surprises. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes baseball or is a fan of popular culture. It's a must read!

some great baseball stories in letter form, a slew of awesome photographs, a nice helping of history and a sense of quirkiness and warmth? Answer: This book. What other book could juxtapose the letters of paul mccartney with shawn green? Or, Ernie Banks and Elizabeth Wrigley-Field? Or tie together the letters of Gaylord Perry and Buzz Aldrin? I found I could not put it down as with the author's other books, but this one really goes all out. I just hopes he keeps doing more of them.

This book is truly great in the fact that even after you've read the letters in it, months later, you remember what some people said--and those things were so inspiring: peter tork of the monkees talking about how 'participating' in an event is, in itself, such a great thing to do. Or, Martin Luther's King's photographer, Flip Schulke, remembering what a great dad Dr. King was...i never thought of dr. king as a father, only as a civil rights leader. Or the guy who's grandfather invented wiffleball and what makes it such a special game.With baseball as a backdrop, all of these intyeresting people wrote to the author (along with some of my favorite baseball players).This book is a true gem, not only for what it is when you're reading it, but for what it is when you are NOT reading it.If you just took away from this visually beautiful book a simple life lesson or two (and you take away many more than that), it would be well worth it. it has been to me and those i've given it to. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who likes...life!

Not the typical book--not even just a 'baseball' book. Needs to be seen to be appreciated. Every page is a visual and emotional feast. From pinch hitter Gates Brown writing (the book is made up of all the actual handwritten letters Mr. Swirsky received from these people) about the day he was told to pinch hit an inning before he normally was asked too. He stuffs his half-eaten hot dog in his jersey and then, against his own wishes, slams a ball into the gap. He slides in and when he gets up, his uniform is covered with hot dog and mustard, ketchup and pieces of the bun.Hilarious. I found President George W. Bush's letter very poignant (amazing that he handwrote a 2 page letter)....There are many more. Try and find this book.You will not regret it.