Massachusetts Books

I was left with one thought after reading this book: when has society done enough? What is the social obligation to a young woman who willingly leaves her home to live in the streets because she isn't happy living with her family? I felt little sympathy for Amanda, the first of two homeless Boston women who were profiled in the book.

Wendy, the second woman profiled in the book, ended up living on the streets through a far more complicated set of circumstances, and reading her story was a far more profound experience. Getting her off the streets and keeping her in sheltered care would be a difficult and perhaps impossible goal to achieve. A person must be amenable to change if they are going to succeed in long-term shelter care or assisted living, and someone with a bad drug habit and mental health issues may not be willing or able to succeed even in the most structured living environment.

I'm disappointed to note that this book has gone out of print.

We hear the phrase "it could happen to any of us" so often but most of us don't believe it. This book will tell you how easily it can happen. The stories of these women are heartwrenching, but yet, very educational. I could not put this book down and since reading it, I have been looking for similar books to purchase. We all need to educate ourselves more about people on the street. We should be outraged that this can happen in a rich country as ours. Next time you see a homeless person, don't look at that person in disgust and be jugdemental. Instead, think of ways you may be able to help.

In just a few hours over two evenings after work I learned more about forestry, ruffed grouse and conservation in general than I have in almost any other book except Sand County Almanac..Sons of Thunder is wonderful! Every lover of the woods and dogs should have a copy.

Wonderful! This book could be a blueprint for conservation activists nationwide. In the footsteps of Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac comes Fred Pullman to show that hunting, properly regulated is conservation; and furthermore, that old 'abandoned' farms don't have to become suburban subdivisions or Malls. All of this in a wonderful story about breeding Brittanys and an evolving romance. There is more food for thought packed into 120 pages than any book I've read in years. This is truly a must read for anyone interested in conservation, hunting and hunting dogs. Just great!

The Spiritual Traveler: Boston and New England provides peaceful, restful places so that you have a balance between hectic and serene on your trip. The author has divided the book into chapters for each of the New England states, as well as Boston and Cape Cod. She provides a comprehensive index and glossary. The author's writing style makes New England's spiritual past come alive, and the present intriguing. Bottom Line: If you are visiting New England, make sure you have a copy of this book!

I bought 2 copies, one for myself and one for my sister-in-law who lives in the Northeast. This is a great present. Jana does a great job! I can't wait for her next publication.

This book sets the standard for sport marketing literature. Sport Marketing provides a good overview of marketing concepts and how they are applied to the sport product. Dr. Sutton is THE guru of sports marketing and delivers a quality instructional and practical guide for the serious sport manager.

If your job is to sell sports, you MUST own this book. Otherwise, you're just a sports wannabe who is constantly guessing about what works and what doesn't. It is the only book that shows you guaranteed ways to build sustainable attendance figures. It shows how factors such as your facility, your promotion efforts, location, pricing, and product relate with each other to provide an overall experience for your customers.

Get this book, use it, and change your career for the better!

This book was a page-turner from the first chapter to the last line. I was sad to see the end of the book because I wanted more. This book was gritty and humorous and I loved this combination in a mystery book.

Thea Kozak is back, and as feisty as ever! In this newest installment of Kate Flora's Thea Kozak Mystery series, Thea is still working on the healing process. With her gentle giant, Andre, close by, she takes aim, literally, at her insecurities and puts the past where it belongs. Great symbolism. Thea might be down, but she's far from out. She's not invincible, so while she falters at times and loses her edge, she is pugnacious to a fault and never concedes defeat. Much like an old Timex timepiece, Thea "takes a licking and keeps on ticking." I absolutely love that about her!

Thea is hoping to enjoy the rest of her weekend with her new hubby, Main State Police Detective Andre Lemieux, when she receives a call from Suzanne, her partner at EDGE Consulting. It seems there is a sticky situation at St. Matthew's, a private New Hampshire boarding school. A female student athlete has accused another student (who just happens to be the grandson of one of the school's most generous benefactors) of stalking - and the school is in dire need of help to defuse the situation. What Thea discovers is that the school really just wants her to rubber stamp her approval of a letter they hope to send out to the parents, basically accusing the female student of fabricating the entire story and thereby holding the school blameless.

A very cursory investigation reveals that the school neglected to follow its own procedures for dealing with accusations, and those who could corroborate the accuser's story were no longer at the school and hadn't even been questioned. Thea smells a coverup and steals herself to sticking around for awhile to sort things out. The school, however, isn't interested in real answers and sends Thea packing. The rejection gnaws a bit on her self-confidence. Has she read the situation correctly or is she completely off base?

When the accused is discovered on campus with the female athlete's older brother standing over his dead body, things at St. Matthew's really heat up, and the school once again calls EDGE Consulting to help avert a crisis. This creates a quandary for Thea. Should she ignore the role those in authority at the school appear to have played in this tragedy, or should she just do her best to cover their behinds no matter what? She is conflicted about just how much useful information she can impart to the police without serving up her clients on a silver platter. She decides that the most ethical course of action is for her to investigate on her own so that she won't be offering up little more than gossip and innuendo.

Thea quickly learns that searching for the truth at St. Matthew's is an unhealthy proposition, and she becomes even more worried about the welfare of Shondra Jones, the 16-year-old accuser. She has no idea that the things she has uncovered thus far are only the tip of the iceberg, and that something far more sinister is festering just below the surface, putting her life, and the lives of those around her, in jeopardy.

Ms. Flora has created palpable suspense and a heart-pounding denouement! The issue of stalking is timely and is handled quite well. I beseech the publisher to bring us the next Thea Kozak Mystery as quickly as possible - her adoring public awaits!

Carol Ann Hopkins 5/24/2008

A preliminary aside: take the whiny tone of the Kirkus Reviewer's comments (above) with a very large grain of salt. Then read this book. It goes far beyond the depth of others with similar goals. Its power resides not only in its subject matter but also in its empathetic and thoughtful treatment of those who have provided the interviews on which the book is based. Fine, fine work indeed.

In recording the stories of one community's response to the AIDS pandemic, the authors have captured the essense of the human spirit as it faces catestrophic circumstances. Starry Night is not just the record of Provincetown's response to AIDS; it is a wonderfully written account of how people embrace people when confronted by adversity. It is a story of place and of people and it transcends both of these to chronical something much larger than one community on a 'spit of land' at the edge of America.

Barton Whaley is respected as the foremost expert in the field of deception, and his book "Stratagem" is by far the very best single publication on the subject. His work was exhaustively researched and provides the clearest and most detailed explanations of theory, principles, tradecraft and case studies on deception.

This book is an absolute 'must have' for any military historian (amateur or professional) or any military officers with any interest or responsibility for intelligence or counter-intelligence.

This book is written in the form of two books, and somewhat less obviously, three books.

Book 1 has six chapters of text that discusses the general concepts of deception from a theoretical standpoint and it's value in warfare. He points out the analysis of 27 wars where in only six of these was a decisive result obtained by a direct approach.

Book 2, the biggest part of the book is Appendix A. This consists of 115 known instances of surprise and/or deception from 1914 to 1968 (this book was first written in 1969). To list just two examples:

Case A30 - Details the efforts that the Japanese went to in order to obscure the fact that they were preparing to attack Pearl Harbor. This view puts an entirely different light on the question about what the Americans knew about the pending attack. Suppose the Japanese knew or even suspected that we might have broken their codes.

Case A45 - The deceptions directed at the Germans regarding D-Day. As Churchill said, the facts regarding the invasion were to be protected by 'a bodyguard of lies.' This details the well known aspects such as the appointment of Patton to head up the ficticious army. But it also reports the FBI, back in the US having one of their agents (code named ND98, and still not publicly identified) send signals to the Germans attempting to direct their attention to an attack in the Med.

Conclusion: Buy a copy of this book before it goes out of print again.

Mary Ann Caws, with her unique gift for drawing the reader willingly into her discoveries, is an invaluable scholar of Surrealism. In clear language, she unfolds and expands for us the imaginative realm of this man, who must be the most hilarious, poignant, and plain-spoken of the Surrealist poets. In Caws's hands, Desnos's unique brand of black humor--dare we say gallows optimism--is rendered all the more poignant by his use of it as a form of resistance against the Nazis, and ultimately in the face of his own death. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Desnos, and for all readers who, whether or not they like "poetry" (this is not the poetry that they pushed on you in school), are looking for a romantic vision that is not sappy, and who want to find a heroic figure that is credible in our modern era.

this is the only critical work on desnos in english to date. highly recommended for anyone interested in studying this amazing poet. caws goes into detail about desnos' symbols and language, and provides a good collection of the various periods of desnos' work both in poetry and prose.

Fabulous book. Dinerstein ties together architecture, tap dancing, West African drummers, the lindy hop, John Henry and Fred Astaire in this exploration of what he calls the "techno-dialogic" embedded in big band/swing music. He argues that African American artists put the industrial rhythms of the era in popular music. In this analysis, dancing to the big band wasn't just about entertainment, it was about using one's body to keep pace with the machine. Until you've read Dinerstein and considered how dance/movement/sound contribute to cultural change, you haven't understood American modernity.

This book weaves together several important and somewhat familiar stories in a startlingly new and brilliant way. We know that music and dance exploded in powerful new forms in the 1930s. And we know the "streamlined" and "futuristic" themes of techno-optimism dominated other cultural expressions in the 1930s. And we know there was a current of "techno-anxiety" that expressed itself in everything from Chaplin films to the Frankfurt School. But Joel Dinerstein has shown that these phenomena intimately informed each other. We will never view early-20th century American culture the same way after this book. Buy it. Read it. Assign it to your students. It should win many major awards.

Verner Mitchell's book is long overdue. Helene Johnson was a brilliant, up and coming poet of the Harlem Renaissance when she left the poetry circuit to make a living. Langston Hughes, among others, praised her poetry. Mitchell's book gives us previously unpublished poetry as well as further insight into her life. I highly recommend this book to one and all.

"This Waiting for Love: Helene Johnson, Poet of the Harlem Renaissance" is an anthology of Johnson's work with a rich collection of supplementary materials. The book is edited with an introduction by Verner D. Mitchell.

This book includes the following: a foreword by scholar Cheryl Wall; 65 pages of Johnson's poems; a chronology; black-and-white photos of Johnson and her literary and personal circle; a selection of letters by Johnson and members of her circle (Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothy West, etc.); an afterword by Johnson's daughter Abigail McGrath, and a 2-page bibliography.

All the supplemental material is fascinating, and helps to put Johnson's life and work in historical and cultural context. But the centerpiece of this book is her marvelous body of poetry. Publication data is given for each poem; included are a number of previously unpublished pieces. Johnson was a true technical master of poetry, skilled at using rhyme, meter, and alliteration. She is as effective with a sonnet as with free verse.

Her work is passionate, witty, and bold. She is a keen observer and has some poems that really appeal to the senses. She is adept with vernacular language, as well as with more traditionally literary language. These poems cover an impressive range of subject matter: nature, religion, oppression, Black pride, urban life, war, growing old, etc.

I fell in love with Johnson's amazing voice years ago when I encountered her work in an anthology. I am glad to see a volume devoted to her legacy; I highly recommend this book for individual reading, classroom use, and book clubs.