Massachusetts Books

Elizabeth August pens another Smytheshire Saga, this time Gillian Hudson the niece of Wanda (the crystals)Elberly, is a writer. (I would like to be also).
She hears the crystals just like her aunt, but she doesn't want people to know.
Gillian dresses like a drab forty year older, and wonders why Taggart Devereux isn't attracted to her.
Well he is, very attracted, but he has a gift of seeing into the future, but just for people who are going to die.
Taggart has seen Gillian die, but he knows he can prevent the death, if he acts at the exact moment of the incident.
Problem is; because of his attraction to Gillian, his ability to see the harm she is facing, mixes with sensual pictures of her.
Although Gillian believes Taggart about his abilities, she won't obey his commands (very much like most women).
Even when her crystal warns her she doesn't take notice, she hushes her crystal and steps into danger.
The surprise to me was why Chief Brant's wife Samantha (Crystal ball) didn't see the danger Gillian was in, even after her husband Thatcher asked her about.
But like Gillian I never saw the surprise villian.

Talk about egotistical women!
Gillian Hudson is living with her grandaunt, Mrs. Wanda Elberly. [remember the lady with the singing "Crystals"?]
Well, Wanda gave Gillian a crystal to wear or at least carry around with her. Seems like Gillian can hear the crystals also and it appears like the crystals listen to these women. They can tell them to hush.

Gillian has come from California to hide out with Wanda because of nearly getting killed when her best friend Ida was plowed down by a hit and run driver. Ida had been receiving stalkers letters and then the supposed killer commited suicide.

Gillian is now receiving similiar letters being mailed from all across the States.
Wanda has hired a mountain man to paint her house by the name of Taggart Devereaux. He seems to be quite a hunk. Gillian is a bit peaked that Taggart has no trouble ignoring her.

Gillian is a bit disconcerted when Ida's widowed husband, Harold Hyatt and his twin sister Evelyn show up and insist on taking her back to California to protect her.

Ah, but now the fun begins, Taggart is not completely immune to Gillian but he still refuses to have anything to do with her but isn't bothered when Evelyn starts a strong campaign to seduce him into her bed. Ah, twinges of jealosy - from both parties.

It seems that Gillian's crystal tries to warn her of immediate danger but [dumb] Gillian is always hushing the crystal.

Taggart has a plan to protect Gillian up the mountain in his cabin [turns out to be a beautiful house], there Gillian meets his mother and brothers.

There is a lot more than what I have revealed -- hope you try this saga -- HIGHLY RECOMMENDED -- you shouldn't be sorry!

The town that Emily Dickinson resided in has never been depicted more vividly. Lombardo leads the reader into Amherst by the hand and paints pictures that I certainly will never forget

This wonderful book has something for everyone! It's an historical novel, an unrequited love story, an adventure book and a spiritual journey all rolled into one. It was a great, satisfying read, and it's one of the very few books in recent memory that I sat down and read from start to finish. I thoroughly enjoyed the information and insights into the historical figures, and they were brought to life in an unusual and imaginative way. For all of us who were brought up on tales of Thoreau, this really is a must read.

I highly recommend this book! The author breathes life into the famous authors of Concord's past in a skillfully woven story that parallels their lives with the lives of the present-day characters in their quest for honor. It is on the surface a tale of passion and ambition but at a much deeper level delves into the spirituality of the literary greats and these ordinary people in a compelling novel. The author's vast knowledge on the topics of Concord history and American authors Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts, among others, imparts unusual and interesting facts about their lives in a refreshingly new approach. You must read this book! I hope you'll love it as much as I did!

After reading this book through, I gave it a permanent place on my bedside table. An inveterate "read before sleep" reader, I can pick it up, flip it open to any page and become once again enthralled as if it were new. It not only aids and encourages the visualization of the scene, it gently and effectively passes on a lot of memorable information. Sometime later I read "Outermost House" and both books share that bedside status. I have also given the same set as a gift to a number of friends.

William Sargent's book gave me a better understanding of a marsh as an environment. After reading his book I had a better appreciation of the role of a marsh especially how it was valued by early settlers. While visting Ipswich I was delighted to meet Mr. Sargent and hear him speak. He has a strong background in marine biology and is a pleasure to have as a speaker. Overall his book helped me feel less like an 'outsider' while visiting the northeast coast of Massachusetts.

Managment theories come and go, but the basics will always hold firm. This book presents those principles in a readable and common sense manner. Many of the ideas are not new, but have stood the test of time, and have bypassed a lot of the fad trends. If this book had been published in more recent times, it would be hailed as a refreshing new departure from outmoded and ineffective methods.

Even though this book is quite old, it still applies in the 21st century. Some of the case studies written 30 years ago have played out over time exactly as the author predicted making this a better book than a more recently written one. I highly recommend this as a book that will last longer than the "new economy".

Wagner has written three profiles of schools in the process of change. What I found helpful about this book is that he recognizes that this process will take time and will encounter set backs but it is still very much worth doing.

He presents three goals that need to be at the front of any kind of school reform--legislators? are you listening? First, there need to be clear goals identified by the staff; setting clear goals will help measure the progress and clarify just what it is to be called educated in our culture. Second, he states that the staff needs to have core values of compassion and integrous commitment to educational aims. That sounds like election-year mumbo-jumbo, yet, read for what it is worth, it really needs to be addressed. Third, he stresses the collaboration required amonst staff at all levels; each needs the other if it is going to be done well.

Implicit in all of these three steps of school reform, Wagner writes, is this, "Some of the better corporations have been practicing for a decade what many public schol are just beginning ot understand: the people who are closest to the problem should be the ones to make decisions and have the responsibility for solving it. Elected officials cannot be expected to run school systems with any degree of competence. They know too little about educational issues in most cases, are too far removed from the problems, and are too subject to pressures from various constituent groups" p. 228. That sure shoots down State Testing and Vouchers.

For the most part, I found his fourth and final chapter the most beneficial, but take the time to encounter the entire book. He is a clear writer and sets forth a balanced perspective.

Looks closely at how reforms play out in different kinds of schools. It is nice to see a book that backs its agenda with open-eyed, practical review of obstacles to true change. Underlying this is Wagner's evident scholarship and experience as a school reform leader. As a student, I think we, our teachers, and everyone else who cares about education reform need to pay this kind of close attention to what actually happens in real schools when reform is attempted.

I was almost done reading this book when an outrage took place in our local community. Using the tactics I learned from Wellstone's work with the OBRC I helped to organize opposition instantly. From a few angry people, our action grew. We delegated tasks, used the media to present our case, and signed on lawyers who threatened legal action. And you know what? We won! Unconditionally. There's a lot of practical advice on direct action along with profiles of activists and the challenges they face, and Wellstone is honest in pointing out pitfalls and shortcomings (including his own).

When Wellstone died in that plane crash last year, we lost one of our best.

This was an excellent book. It offers one of the finest explications of the concept of "organizing" and the process by which the rural poor (or people in general) can be taken from apathy to self-driven activism. Perhaps, the most important lessons for organizers reading this book concern what practices to avoid in establishing your community activist organization - Wellstone goes into great depth in analyzing areas in which his OBRC (Organization for a Better Rice County) failed, just as much as he highlights its notable successes.

Kristi Witker in 1972 was a journalist on a skiing vacation in Switzerland when she received an invitation to help with the McGovern campaign. It was the chance of lifetime. She took it.
She later decided she had made the wrong choice, but she stuck it out and wrote about it.

She received the offer because she traveled with Robert Kennedy's 1968 Presidential campaign,having been assigned to write a book on him for American Heritage Press. "Kennedy turned out to be an accessible candidate," she writes. "Traveling with the Kennedy campaign was a relaxing and enormously pleasureable experience."

This book by a young woman who later became a successful television reporter is both hilarious and profound. Reading it provides a baseline for the political progress women have made.

As Deputy Press Secretary, she was McGovern's highest ranking female staffer. Yet she was denied basic office furniture, and treated disrespectfully by other staff, who both withheld cooperation that she needed in order to do her job, and spread rumors about her sex life, which, she complains, was much more boring than she would have liked.

A basic problem of the McGovern campaign was that it was led by the remnants of the Robert Kennedy campaign, who saw in McGovern's politics a chance to reclaim Kennedy's vision. But McGovern was not as well known, as charismatic, as politically skilled, and--perhaps most importantly--anywhere near as wealthy as Kennedy.

"It looks like McGovern is nothing on his own, that he has to rely on the Kennedy ghost," Whitker fumes early in the campaign when a McGovern television commercial contains praise from RFK.

Running as the Kennedy legacy candidate is hampered by Ted Kennedy's disinclination to campaign for McGovern in the primaries, and his refusal to accept McGovern's offer of the Vice-Presidential nomination. Ultimately, after various false starts (remember Tom Eagleton?), McGovern winds up with Kennedy borther-in-law Sargent Shriver as a runningmate, but it is too little, too late to secure the Kennedy constituency and unite the Democratic Party.

She assails McGovern's lack of mastery of public policy mastery.
"We have to do something on the economy," he tells a staff member." The staffer members asks what. "Something," McGovern repeats. McGovern's hatred of being committed to specific details led to a fatal lack of clarity and inability to weed out bad ideas. His $1000 per person tax rebate was the quintessential bad idea.

The limitations of McGovern's staff were also deadly. "His campaign was at first a minor effort appropriately run by minors, but as he came up, they felt they owned him and were determined not to share him. The candidate became their captive and they, in time, his limitation. These kids always had wildly impractical, rigid, theological notions about politics....(E)veryone had a title which suggested he was the boss. In fact, no one was."

In the McGovern campaign, closeness to the center of the action was all. People wanted to be central staff, not field staff. Gary Hart did parlay his position as campaign manager (outranked by National Political Director Frank Mankiewcz though) into two terms in the U.S. Senate and two presidential candidacies. But a guy not mentioned in the book--Texas field staff director Bill Clinton--went a lot farther of course. So may his Texas co-worker Hillary Rodham, also not mentioned.

What Clinton learned from McGovern was the importance of conducting a primary election campaign with the general election in mind. McGovern taught this lesson by failing to understand it.

"Throughout the primaries," Witker writes,"McGovern and his staff had been running like a group of lemmings with blinders on, toward the sea, which, in their case, happened to be The Nomination. The Nomination was their only goal, a goal now out of all proportion because McGovern's longshot candidacy had made it seem unattainable. And because it had seemed unattainable, McGovern now credited it with mystical powers. If he won The Nomination, he would somehow become invincible and have anything he wanted."

McGovern, a strong moral leader and an enduring political figure in the years since his 1972 campaign, could have been elected with a better campaign, Witker implies. That is difficult to say: in the 20th Century only Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton were able to defeat incumbent Republican presidents, and all had the benefit of deeply divided a Republican Party at the time.

Both Witker's humor and political insights are still valuable today. No one should attempt to put together a large scale political operation without reading this book. And anyone grappling with the problems of how to run an extensive volunteer operation of any kind would also benefit. This is a great case study of the human resources issues involved in running a large volunteer operation.

The campaign "was a once in a lifetime experience," Witker concludes. And, indeed, she never worked in a Presidential campaign again.

Her summary of Republican appeal is an enduring one. "It was already a depressing year on top of a succession of depressing years: rising prices, falling stock market, scandals, the War, crime. Who wanted to think about goodness and justice and truth just now? It only reminded you of how little of it was around. Not many people trusted Nixon, but he wasn't taking away their money, or so they believed. No one knew whether to trust McGovern, but he was threatening to take away their money, so why bother to find out? Why listen?"

Those who listen to Kristi Witker will benefit from the experience. If you are reading this review, you should read this book.

Just one thing I want to know. Is this the same Kristi Witker who C. David Heymann alleges had an affair with RFK?

My husband and I were given this book as a gift, and having grown up in Hull, it was very special. We learned a lot about the town we had known for 20 years; I only wish I knew about it while living there. The photos were wonderful. I am now going to buy this book for my parents, who have sinced moved away from Hull but who I know will enjoy the book immensely.

What a great book, I gave it as a gift to someone who grew up in Hull and they enjoyed the book. The photos brought back great memories reminded them of the history of the area. If you are from the area of Massachusettes that Nantasket Beach is and want to learn the history I would recommend you pick up this book, there is a lot more to the place than the beach!

This book to me is a must have for any lover of Salem, or anyone interested in knowing the real story of the Witch Hunts. If you are planning a trip to Salem then this book is truly a must have as it tells you all the places to visit, what happened at those places, and most importantly directions on how to get to those places! Truly a wonderful book to have for all the information it provides.

This is much more than just a guide book. It gives a detailed, fascinating, lucid and very readable account of what happened in Salem in 1692, from when the girls in Salem Village parsonage started going into fits to when the last accused witches were released from jail and compensation was finally paid and names cleared. With surprising subtelty, given its concision, it clarifies such issues as whether the accusing girls were hysterical or faking and what the relationships were between all the main leaders of the witch hunt. Both for people visiting Salem, who want to be taken back in time by exploring what remains from those days, and for people who would like to visit Salem but can't, this is the perfect introduction to the witch trials. With many maps and illustrations and an easy to read format, it's suitable for all ages.