Illinois Books

Frank Joseph's story, TO LOVE MERCY, is, on the surface, about two young boys and their families, one black, one white, living in a segregated Chicago of the 1940s; and a confrontation that might have ended in tragedy that instead inspires mutual curiosity, respect, and eventually trust. These feelings between the two heroes of the story lead them to follow their hearts, not allowing the adults, who refuse to resolve their differences, to turn them away from the truth--that they are more alike than they are different, that they have, by living through a particular set of experiences together, become friends. But the story offers even more for those who are open to its timeless and universal message. It provides a template of hope for what will certainly be one of the ongoing challenges for the next generation--achieving a greater understanding of those who are different than "us," whoever "we" and "they" happen to be at any given moment.

This book is a must read for every middle and high school student in the Chicago area. Narrated primarily by two children, it's voices are incredibly real and completely believable. While the story is a painful reminder of how race has (and continues) to influence how many Americans treat each other -- the reader will find no lectures or moralizing in this book -- just compelling dialogue and a plot that makes it hard to put down.

I've never read a story quite like To Love Mercy, but I wish there were others like it. The unique way the book was written and laid-out really kept me reading and eager to find out what was going to happen next.
I am no author, but I know that writing from the perspective of someone else takes a lot of talent. Frank Joseph did this fluently and creatively, which provided me with complete mental images of each scene.
I strongly recommend To Love Mercy. It explores racial issues and is an all-around good novel.

I work at a College in the Englsih department so I'm always on the lookout for intersting books that can be used in classes. I found "To Love Mercy" a very interesting read. I really enjoyed the depth that Mr. Joseph went to in creating some of his characters (he talks about it in his blog on his book website). I thought that the most intersting part was how he had the two main characters bond though a negative incident that turns out to create an incredibly positive bond and growth experience for both boys. I enjoyed this book a lot.

To Love Mercy is a heartfelt story about two boys who grow up in different racial and economic backgrounds, where segregation and ignorance make up the landscape of society. They become the center of a brewing storm between their families.

Written in a very unique narrative style, Frank S. Joseph invites the reader to a neighborhood called Bronzeville during the '40s in Chicago, Illinois. The lives of pre-teens Steve Feinberg and Jessie "Sass" Owens Trimble intersect in a parking lot after a White Sox game, when Sass, his brothers and their friends accost Steve, his father and grandfather for money. What began as taunting in order to distract them and pick their pockets, ends up with Sass knocked out cold with a broken nose and a lost heirloom.

Steve wants to do the right things and comes alone to the hospital to visit Sass. What proceeds is a beautifully written story from a child's perspective on race, money and friendship--and God. The intimate interviews Frank had with black Southerners who migrated to Chicago and those who lived in Bronzeville are reflected in the careful details of the characters.

The lack of punctuations in the story line was disconcerting at first, yet it became freeing as I found myself invited into the private thoughts of Dora, Steve and Sass. There is a reverence about how Frank leads the readers into their personal struggles, fears and anguish. It is obvious his love for them kept the integrity of this novel intact.

I finished the book is four days, reading it every chance I could. I was disappointed when it ended because I felt I was leaving new friends behind.

Armchair Interviews says: For a debut novel this was very well done.

Chances are if you're reading the reviews for this book then you've read at least one Capone biography and walked away, like me, thinking, "Great story, wish I knew more about the Northsiders." Well Rose Keefe has heard our collective wail and has provided us with one of the best books on both Chicago gangland and one of its most interesting characters. There is much more to the O'Banion/Northside story than just being fodder for Capone's gunmen. If you're into Chicago's gangland past then this volume is a must.

A great bio on the Chicago gangster gunned down in his flower shop during the "Roaring Twenties". The book focuses on the rivalry between the Northside Chicago mob and the Southside Torrio-Capone mob.Obanion and his cohorts are literally devoured by the inter-city "big time" mobs with connections to New York city.From reading this book I don't believe Obanion knew what he was up against,he was a small town boy who moved to the city of Chicago, yet he tried to run his crime empire like a small business. Cavorting around a flower shop by day,shaking hands,(without an enemy in the world?),with little to no protection,meanwhile engaging in criminal activity that would include murder.That's just asking for it,and Torrio's mob,later inherited by Capone,was only too happy to oblige. It seems Torrio's mob when they arrived in Chicago was already an experienced hard core criminal transplant from NYC and cites thereof.How could Obanion honestly think that when the control of rackets,gambling,bottlegging,and the millions of dollars at stake, there was a "moral" line that shouldn't be crossed?Especially when dealing with the mob and seeing as the mob eliminated its own so what could a rival gang expect.Capone listed his profession as furniture dealer but I doubt you would see him lifting furniture into trucks.His furniture business was a fort.The short baby faced Obanion never had a chance in dealing with the NYC mob. this book really brought this out as I read it.An excellent work on crime history but it sort of makes Obanion look like a "farmer".

This is about the people who nearly beat the Capone Mob for control of the Chicago boot-legging business. They were led by a florist and included a war hero, a cowboy, a bigamist and a practical joker who starred in an early stag film in the middle of a gang war. The wild Northside Gang is today best remembered for being the victims in the St Valentine's Massacre but in the twenties they were household names. This and Rose Keefe's book about Bugs Moran are both fascinating. A must read!

I'm so glad to see some really well-researched books coming out these days about the legendary figures of organized crime. Dean (not Dion) O'Banion was one guy I never expected to see a full-blown biography on, yet here it is. Rose O'Keefe must have done a lot of digging to come up with all of this material, and virtually none of it can be found in any other book; certainly none that I've ever heard of. She scores well as a writer, too, telling O'Banion's story in a way that will keep you turning those pages, eager to see what's coming next. There's a lot of context here about the various gangs of 1910s-1920s Chicago, and O'Banion's place in that jungle, which is helpful. If I had to name one small criticism, I'd have to say that the author's tone betrays a tiny lack of objectivity about her subject. He just seems like a vicious thug to me, though a fascinating one, but the book empathizes more with O'Banion than with his victims. But overall this is a must-have book for anyone interested in the history of organized crime in America. You'll be so entertained in reading it that you won't mind the education you're getting!

This is the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched biography of Dean O'Banion and it has been justly recognized as definitive. Rose Keefe's greatest accomplishment is that her meticulous research has refuted dozens of journalistic half truths, embellishments and canards that have become commonly accepted as the truth simply because of constant repetition over eight decades. The actual Dean O'Banion is a far more complex and interesting character than his newspaper stereotype.

Many sources have characterized the Prohibition battles between the Northside Gang and the Capone/Torrio mob as simply a territorial battle between the Irish and those damned Dagoes. Keefe correctly points out that the Northsiders were, in fact, an exceedingly diverse group comprised of Irish, Italian, German, Jewish and Polish hoodlums. The reality was more complicated than the widely accepted conventional wisdom.

Although O'Banion could act in an utterly ruthless manner if circumstances warranted, more often than not he relied upon his quick wits. He possessed superior intelligence and had an engaging personality that inspired great loyalty from his comrades even long after his death.

Despite his humble origins, O'Banion had the ability to put people from various walks of life at perfect ease and to form lasting friendships that allowed him to move easily in political and social circles despite his criminal background. O'Banion was a contradiction: he was a devoted son and husband. One could envision the industrious O'Banion succeeding in almost any field of endeavor that he tried. The loss of his beloved mother to tuberculosis and a childhood accident that left O'Banion partially crippled with a permanent limp were traumatic episodes, but rather than contenting himself to be sidelined by his handicap or to endure a life of economic hardship and privation, O'Banion chose not to be pushed around as he hit back hard with both fists in order to survive in the rough and tumble, dog eat dog environment that was Chicago in the early years of the past century.

If you are living from hand to mouth, it always pays to be ambidextrous and O'Banion was, figuratively and literally: his custom tailored suits contained multiple pistol pockets which allowed O'Banion to draw concealed revolvers using either his right or left hand or both hands simultaneously. The same hands that O'Banion could and did use to fire pistols, crack safes, stuff ballot boxes or slug out rival newspaper hawkers would also cut flowers into lovely arrangements for weddings and funerals. As a bootlegger, O'Banion prided himself on selling quality products as opposed to the rot gut handled by his rivals.

Keefe relates the many occasions on which O'Banion performed acts of charity. Some of these kindly acts were calculated, however, since O'Banion was also interested in reaping votes come election time. By performing good deeds, he could call in favors when ballots were being cast by his neighbors. Unlike Al Capone who coupled brutality and with openly lewd and lecherous behavior (Scarface allegedly gained his trademark after making crude remarks about a woman's shapely posterior in the presence of her protective and knife wielding older brother), O'Banion was noted for behaving in a courteous and oftentimes chivalrous manner.

Keefe's writing is factual and entertaining. The O'Banion who she describes in such great depth proves to be such a charming and larger than life personality that it is entirely possible to imagine his immortal soul awaiting forgiveness and redemption in Purgatory. I was reminded of the Warner Brothers crime melodrama "Angels with Dirty Faces" in which a priest played by Pat O'Brien called upon a group of juvenile delinquents to "pray for a boy that who couldn't run as fast as I could" after his childhood friend who failed to escape the corrupting influence of the mean streets died at an early age as a result of embarking upon a criminal career. If this sounds like a mere Hollywood screenwriting cliche, consider the fact that a Roman Catholic priest was disciplined and transferred for leading graveside prayers for Dean O'Banion despite orders from the Cardinal to deny Christian burial rites to known gangsters.

The only serious fault that I found with "Guns and Roses" is that the book lacks proper footnotes. There is a bibliography, but Keefe ought to have provided footnote attributions to the excerpted materials that were previously published elsewhere. There are also some minor geographical, historical and typographical errors that Chicagoans may catch in the text, usually on minor details, but the book is otherwise solid. Despite these shortcomings, this book is nevertheless a significant addition to the true crime history of Chicago during the Prohibition Era.

I loved Mr. Ayala's book. This book tells of real life situations, as many people experience this lifestyle everyday. He teached us that no matter what the situation is, faith in the Lord will bring you through. I have had the pleasure of reading Mr. Ayala's novel Alabaster Box as well and loved it! If you love Will You Be Made Whole you will enjoy Alabaster Box just the same. Please keep writing Mr. Ayala!

When Keith Coleman got on the Greyhound bus headed to Chicago he knew his life would never be the same. At the ripe age of 13, he fled his home in Atlanta after he defended his mother against his stepfather. Fearing the loss of his freedom, he thought he could go to Chicago and stay with his mother's sister. However, staying with his aunt was not an option with the authorities looking for him. Unfortunately for Keith, he was beaten unconscious soon after he arrived in Chicago and it was Drake Sommersbee who helped to change the course of his life. With Drake's help, Keith became KC and into his life came a succession of characters all seeking solace and help but not knowing where to garner it.

Katy meets KC while at a club, which begins their friendship. She is from a wealthy family in Ohio and finds Northwestern University has more to offer than just an education. However, she finds herself in a situation, that can only be categorized as purgatory. She goes from being a young woman with goals to a prostitute who can't get away from the man she thought loved her, but was really just her pimp.

There are several other characters in this story whose lives are intertwined as they live sinful lives and hope for a better life. One constant person in the characters' lives is a homeless man known as Old Ben who seems to know everything about each person and tries to guide them to salvation. He seems to be in the story to help them all learn to accept Christ and know they are loved.

WILL YOU BE MADE WHOLE has an inspiring message of accepting God's love and faith without being overly preachy. The characters all have lived sinful lives whether it was drugs, alcohol, sex, homosexuality, murder or more illicit transgressions, yet they are all deserving of being saved if they are willing to ask forgiveness for their sins and accept Christ into their lives. Readers will be drawn to several of the characters because it was easy to understand their pain and because they will probably recognize some of the characters from people in their own lives. The pacing was okay, and there were only a few editorial issues. Unfortunately, the story was too predictable; you knew what was going to happen before it happened, leaving no element of surprise. Although written in a simple manner, it guarantees the readers will receive the inspired message.

Reviewed by Cashana Seals
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

From the beginning to end to book of work keep you wondering what's going to happen next. Once you pick this book up you will not want to put it down. The author really gives life to all the character's in this book. My favorite character in this novel is Big Ben the homeless man. He's like the conscience or guardian angel througout the story. If you're expecting a E.L Lynn Harris or a ZANE like experience you will be disappointed. Ayala will take you mind to a different level. He brings a strong and powerful Christian standpoints but he don't turn you off with it. Ayala isn't someone to sleep on. Check this book on all of his other literary works.

Often in life we face a moment time that will alter our lives forever. This was the quandry Keith Patrick Coleman found himself in as the sand from the hour glass slid away. From page one you'll find yourself enthralled following Keith's every move as he leaves Atlanta for the mean streets of the windy city. What do you do when you can't stay home, and you have no place to go? Will you be made whole has all the angst and passion of Shakespere's Hamlet in a modern day setting. Get ready for the ride of your life!

E.L. Ayala is a very powerful writer. With a background in playwriting and stage productions he has honed a sense of drama that serves him very well indeed as a new novelist. Ayala joins the ranks of the fine cadre of African American writers today with his first novel WILL YOU BE MADE WHOLE, and with the surety of voice he has developed, we can expect further equally fine books from this artist.

Ayala has chosen Chicago as his stage for this story of multiple lives that interweave in a journey through drug abuse, prostitution, sex rings that involve both boys and girls as sex workers, violence, parental abuse, AIDS, the homeless street people, and ultimately for the power of friendship and love and as well sculpted a use of introducing ethics and religion as any writer writing today. He paints wholly three-dimensional characters, allowing their own character development in the course of the story to physically and emotionally describe their physical personas. The leading character is KC, a young thirteen-year-old running away from Georgia after being involved in murdering his abusive stepfather and while on the bus to Chicago he encounters a dear lady who shares with him a tattered book 'When God Doesn't Make Sense', a book she eventually leaves with him and which sets the tone for the long epic ahead. Once in Chicago KC is taken in by a kind black man (Drake) who treats him well, cares for him, and eventually becomes KC's lover as well. Drake is involved in a male prostitution ring and KC successfully develops into a handsome hunk who is one of Drake's prime hustlers.

Parallel to his gradually developing story of one lad's rise and fall is a second story of a young girl Katy who arrives in Chicago from Youngstown, Ohio to attend Northwestern University. What begins as a mild shy girl develops into the character who likewise falls into the prostitution line due to the influence of the handsome but evil Sugar Man. This slow but inevitable descent into low life is populated with a number of friends for Katy and one of those friends is KC. From the time of their meeting the story pummels into the fast track of bad choices, violence, drugs, bondage to pimps, yet in this story there also appears Old Ben, a homeless street person 'angel' who seems to rise up out of a sense of strange timing to offer consoling words from the Bible, messages about God's love and restorative powers for the downtrodden.

To tell more would be to deprive the reader of just how facile E.L. Ayala is in bringing the reader face to face with the seamiest side of life, creating a glowing tapestry with threads of fear, of need, of illness, of desperation, of shared love, of disappointment...of restoration. Ayala is in control of the story at every turn and never lingers too long to let the numbing persistence of a world gone wrong become maudlin. The narrative is crisp, the events propel naturally, and the use of the introduction of spiritual healing is never intrusive, only needed!

Stories of crime in the smarmy side of big cities are many, but few have been told with the finesse and page-turning style Ayala manages. This is a fine book, worthy of serious attention among readers, and a first novel that bears witness to a fine new talent. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, March 06

There is also a paperback version of this book available for $24.95. Amazon sells it for $15.72 (37% off the cover price). You can find it by searching under the editor's name.

Wonderful Wonderful Edition!! I agree with the former missionary. This is a very user freindly edition of the BoM. The offical LDS Church Edition is very imposing and stark compared to this very inviting and easy on the eyes BoM format. Hand this edition to potential converts and they just might read the BoM. Why it took a secular university to put another Churche's Main Religious Text in a truly inspired format is beyond me. Maybe it is time the LDS Church puts out a new version of the "Standard Works". After all....it has been quite a while since 1978 when they redid all of the scriptures.

(From Paragraph 67) Christian faith cannot accept 'revelations' that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfilment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such 'revelations'.

(Paragraph 73) God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son, in whom he has established his covenant for ever. The Son is his Father's definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after him.

This edition of The Book of Mormon is absolutely delicious. "Come unto the Holy One of Israel, and FEAST upon that which perisheth not ... and LET YOUR SOUL DELIGHT IN FATNESS."

I read the Book of Mormon for the first time in mid-2002 at age 15. Since then, I have read it almost 9 times (as of this review). Moreover, I have read a heck of a lot of material critical of the text itself (e.g. The Tanners, Evans, Vogel, Metcalfe) Notwithstanding, most, if not all, the attacks are usually based on fraud and/or popular though errant assumptions about the Book of Mormon text that actually do not jive with the text itself. In additoin, what Hardy has done with the 1920 text is make it more accessible to those approaching the Book of Mormon, following modern editions of the Bible, by indenting, for example, prose, not too dissimilar to the NRSV rendition of Deuteronomy 32, and leaving introductions to chapters to a bare minimum, alongside adding a number of appendixes, such as one on poetry in the Book of Mormon (e.g, chiasmus).

I urge any one interested in the truth to read the Book of Mormon to discover for themselves that it is indeed another testament of Jesus Christ, and to learn of its truthfulness by study and by prayer to God, after "testing all things" (Acts 17:11).

The story traces the life of Nick Romano from alter boy to cop killer,painting pictures of the disowned people and places in pre war Chicago.
To put it simply, this is a fantastic book. It is so readable;the pace never drops and Motley never loses the readers attention.Anyone from teenager onwards will enjoy reading this all time great novel and it will push them on to searching out and discovering other Chicago greats;Richard Wrights 'Native Son' or Nelson Algrens 'Neon Wilderness' for example.
A great story not only well told, but written how it should be.The original 'unputdownable' read!

This novel is Willard Motley's masterpiece. His subsequent books never approached the impact of "Knock on Any Door." The author set his novel on Chicago's West Side Skid Row. The book contains numerous Chicago street addresses and local references. Motley actually lived on Skid Row while writing the book.

Motley was an African American writer, but it might be difficult to discern this from his writing. As an author, he focuses so much upon his Italian-American characters that he seems to fade completely into the background. Motley once worked for "The Chicago Defender." He has been credited with creating the Bud Biliken character which gave rise to annual Back to School parade which is held in Chicago.

"Knock on Any Door" was adapted for a film with Humphrey Bogart and John Derek, but it had to be carefully revised for the screen. Much of the sexual content had to be removed or muted. Nevertheless, for readers and movie goers in the Forties, the material must have been considered somewhat shocking. The novel addressed several taboo subjects such
as adultery, capital punishment, communism, crime, gambling, homosexuality, illegitimacy and prostitution.

The success of "Knock on Any Door" inspired a sequel, "Let No Man Write My Epitaph." The second novel follows the character of Nick Romano's illegitimate son who may be following in his late father's footsteps.

Much of the Skid Row area along West Madison Street has been cleared due to urban renewal, but this sociological novel is still worthwhile and timely. I am somewhat surprised that Motley is not especially well remembered in his native Chicago. "Knock on Any Door" is a forgotten masterpiece. I had to find a worn copy in a public library to read a few years ago. It is good news, indeed, that the novel has been reissued in a new edition.

Of course there are writers that use their brains, and writers that write with their hearts...Willard Motley spills his guts all over the pages in every one of his four novels.

I first read KNOCK ON ANY DOOR when I was a freshman in high school, and got sent home with a letter to my parents for bringing "unacceptable reading material to school"!!! I have read that book at least three more times, and each time it is a belly punch. The Bogart movie did not do justice to this fine work.

I did not know Motley was African-American, until after I finished his thrid novel.

Willard Motley was not just a great novelist, he was what the heart and soul of this Nation should be.

I'm sorry to offer a counter opinion amongst all the enthusiasm, but if you are interested in this subject you really should read "Never Come Morning," by Nelson Algren. KOAD is an OK novel, neither great nor terrible. And I don't want to disuade you from buying it. However, it pales in comparison to NCM, a FAR superior novel written by a FAR superior writer. Put KOAD in your basket and then RUN, don't walk, to the Nelson Algren section and buy Never Come Morning. Now you have a one good and one GREAT novel in your basket.

I read this book 41 years ago , i was not very well educated my school only taught religion and self preservation, i left at 15 . One day i found this book on a bus and took it home it was on the shelf for a month or two then one night i started reading my first novel i could not put it down i found a new pleasure in life instead of going out every night hanging round with the gang and breaking the law for kicks i changed and i put it down to this book knock on any door, i found the author understood my feelings and it was so easy to understand thank you Willard Mottley

I enjoyed the book, but I was a little disappointed that it was so short. Overall it was a decent ending to a great series.

Now that I have finished the Yada Yada series, I am grieving that it is done. I have so enjoyed these books from start to finish. The author does a great job showcasing the power of our Lord without being "preachy". I have learned a lot about my own prayer life while reading these.

This is to be the final in the Yada Yada series and it wraped things up nicely. I've enjoyed the whole series as its been an encouragement to see how other Christians handle LIFE. I felt the Sisters had worked out major differences between themselves and were better equiped to live life following Jesus. Great Ending

Ah, I love reading this series! I bought it for my mother in law too, she loves them too! Good, Christian read. I wish I had a yadda yadda prayer group where I live!

The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out (Yada Yada Prayer Group) Excellent book. Highly recommend this one and all of the other books in this series.

I simply gush when I talk about the ladies of the Yada Yada Prayer Group. I love each book. The stories are wonderful. Mrs. Jackson masterfully develops each story so that each book captures you. Then, the books build on one another. You will feel as though you have a vested interest in these wonderful, diverse and perfectly imperfect women. I thank Mrs. Jackson for this labor of love. The books helped me through a rough time in my life. The series helped me forgive someone who hurt me deeply with this line - "God expects us to fogive people. Even the ones that don't say 'I'm sorry'". I was able to move from resentment to forgiveness through that one line. YOU WILL BE BLESSED BY THIS BOOK SERIES!!

The Yada Yada books continue to challenge relational growth, by showing life experiences with diverse characters. Each book has new elements of change and development, which can inspire real life solutions to problems.

This series of books is a MUST read. Excellent stories of love and faith. Very inspirational. I felt like I was there.

Some of the best Christian fiction I have ever read--start with Book one as each builds on the previous books--you'll want to read them all!

As with all the Yada Yada books, I could see myself as a part of this group and glad I do have friends like these. The Yada Yada group finds themselves dealing with many difficult situations and in the process are inspiring me to grow in my faith. Teaching me to pray first not later and lift my troubles up to God. The faith some of these ladies exhibit is awe inspiring. Fictional story but so full of truth.

This book was easy to read and understand. It should be read by every young person in children's home, in the foster system, in juvenile detention, and those with an incarcerated parent. Even those of us who never suffered any of those hardships, can learn an important lesson in forgiving those who have hurt us.

Wonderful book. Would recommend this book to any age group. Very touching and inspiring story.

Castaway Kid is a wonderful autobiography for anyone similarly struggling in life with circumstances beyond their control. If you think adult struggles are overwhelming, think how you'd be able to handle them as a child, when age works against you as you try to improve your situation with intelligent questions for the only adults supposed to take care of you. This is an inspirational Horatio Alger story: the kind of story that reminds you how well you have it in a free society, but where people still make mistakes and others suffer as a consequence, notwithstanding the best of intentions of some who want to help.
Full disclosure here: I also went to school with Mr. Mitchell at Guilford. But I had only a limited knowledge of his childhood and the circumstances of his parents and the two grandmothers. The details in this book were things he certainly kept private in the dorm and on campus. And I never would have guessed how irreligious he was until his epiphany. I like to think that some of the friendships he made at Guilford helped stabilize his renewed faith in mankind, even if only secondary to his faith in God. All his struggles as an adult obviously pale compared to what he had to go through as a child. But as an inspirational and motivational story, it is a very pleasant read, indeed.

Too often we read about children lost in the system and of others who have been so beaten down that they never recover. Thus I found this book to be a refreshing change. Filled with hope, Rob eloquently shares his story of surviving and thriving, against all odds. I know people who lived in Princeton and have confirmed the details of Rob's story. Thank God for the Gigis and Nolas in the world who care for kids like Rob. Thanks, Rob, for baring your soul.

Having been in the service of serving abandoned, behaviorally disturbed children and adolescents for 32 years, I was able to reminisce and find memories explicity tied to this book. The messages are accurate, profound, and direct. The chapters relive one man's story but the themes are multiplied by the number of kids in care from yesterday to the present and the stories are wide and varied. There are many stories in the lives of children from both yesteryear to this present day and age.The names change and the faces are different but the broken body and mind are still evident today. When one reads this book you become acutely aware of why behavior, emotion,identity, can go awry. All of the clinical terminology which labels children in placement existed then and still does today. What is remarkable and I have seen it over and over is that there are those who "will" to live, who "will" to grow, who never give up. Out of all the chaos emerges a Rob Mitchell and there are numbers upon numbers who, in spite of the many abuses and neglect, rise to become vibrant creative human beings like he has. This is a story of one of them. And, of so many of the children I have seen rise out of their pathology and into health, I have also seen a remarkable closeness to an abiding faith. Rob Mitchell is a man of that faith. Castaway Kid is just one of many castaway kids. What a wonderful read.
David Carlson MSW, LCSW

It seems like reading would require no specific techniques, that they would come naturally to one and go without saying, even when the task is more specified, as in the reading of plays. But Ball breaks down this seemingly natural sense into its component elements and explains them in easily digestible, well-paced segments, and to examine these elements does much in the way of re-learning and thus refining and fine-tuning one's seemingly natural reading skill. This skill can be taken and applied in various ways (as Ball describes in the introduction), some of which are immeasurably improved by the complex understanding that posessing these refined elements provides; the reading a play to produce it, for example, or the writing of one yourself can be tremendously improved if one is constantly aware of what they are doing, why they're doing it, and what about their actions are correct, lacking, unnecessary or obtrusive. Without having a defined sense of the tools contained within this book, these tasks would be much more difficult, complicated, vague and roundabout, thus slowing, weakening or perhaps ruining the final product. Pair this skill set with application to texts such as plays, which are made all the more difficult by the fact that the playwright thinks in terms more of making their production work when produced for an audience and less of making their script read and be easily graspable completely on the page, and this manual becomes immeasurably more useful on a basic and elemental level.

This book would serve a Script Analysis class very well. I plan to use it for mine in the fall. It also is reader friendly enough to serve an actor/director/designer wanting a different perspective, perhaps, on a script; or could be a different way of explaining what we were generally taught as undergrads.

I have read a lot of books on the subjects of writing and acting. This book contains almost every important point in the tens of thousands of pages I have read when it comes to structure. If you are a writer you have to own this book! There is no wasted space in it. No actor or director on the planet should live without it either. You can read it in a day, but you'll read it again and again.

This book may have been primarily written for directors and writers, but it is a great tool for actors to get to real active meanings in a script.

I agreee wholeheartedly with those below. But Mr Ball is not merely a theorist, he supplies a chapter in which he takes us on a brief journey backward through Hamlet for a distance, and through this method shows how single and specific Hamlet's action is. I can't approach a script now without setting up my dominoes and charting it backward. It seemes foolish not to.

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

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

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

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

Victoria Chang, Circle (Crab Orchard Review, 2005)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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