States Books

I liked "A Passion Most Pure," but I REALLY liked this book. Often I find that authors make a great beginning only to fizzle out as the series progresses, but this book was even better and I suspect the next one will be as good as, if not better, than even the first two in the series. I liked Charity O'Connor from the first book, even though some people didn't because I could understand why she tricked Mitch Dennehy into kissing her in order to get back at her sister, Faith, for taking Collin's affections.

This book takes off where the first one left off. Faith and Collin are engaged, and Charity remains in Ireland with her grandmother and great-grandmother. She loves her job and Mitch. But Mitch won't have anything to do with her since he blames her for breaking him and Faith apart. I can also understand Mitch's side too, which is what makes these two characters realistic and likeable. Charity uses her beauty to seduce him, but he wants a woman who follows God, so he keeps refusing her. It was fun to watch what ploy Charity would pull next, though it did eventually come at a heartbreaking price, which is often the case when we keep playing with sin.

Besides her usual fun and spirited personality (with a dash of humor), I enjoyed watching Charity as she progressed from pursuing her will to following God's. Her conversion doesn't happen right away and she swings back and forth. The desire for God does emerge but her own wishes get in the way, which I have found to be true in my life. It is very hard to follow God when His will doesn't match ours, and Julie Lessman did an excellent job of displaying this.

Mitch is strongly attracted to her, and he does love her, but he has to fight the temptation she offers. This makes for a whole lot of chemistry and kept me turning the pages. I give Julie Lessman many kudos for daring to write about sexual desire in a Christian love story. In both books now, she has demonstrated the beauty of sex and when it is and is not appropriate. The characters she has created have grabbed my heart and I can't wait to read book three.

First of all I highly recommend that you read A Passion Most Pure (the first in the series) before you read A Passion Redeemed. Not that Redeemed isn't amazing in its own right, but because you get so much more out of it when the two books are read in conjunction.

**Warning of you haven't read Pure then spoilers follow**

Redeemed picks up where Pure left off. Her family having returned to Boston Charity has remained in Ireland, determined to win over Mitch. Poor Mitch wants nothing to do with the girl who cost him his fiance, but doesn't really have much say in the matter when Charity sets her sights on him!

A lot of reviewers have already covered off key elements of the plot far better than I could so I'm just going to throw a couple of things in.

Julie is a master at conflicting the reader at how they want the story to end. By the last few chapters I was completely torn as to who I wanted Charity to end up with. I can't think of any other authors who do this with Julie's skill.

While we're there she is also a master a playing with the readers emotions - I have to admit that by the last thirty pages I didn't think it was going to be possible for Julie to 'redeem' Charity for me after 250 odd pages of her manipulation and selfishness. Yet somehow she did it...

Finally, if you're reading this you'll have probably have read Pure and know that Julie's characters are not limited to chaste kisses on the cheek. But if you aren't aware of that and this is as 'far' as you like your characters to go, this book will have you rather hot under the collar!

Like many others I am also desperate for May 2009 and the next book in the series - simply the title alone - A Passion Denied, has me intrigued.

Review for A Passion Redeemed by Julie Lessman
You know how you feel when you get a piece of really good chocolate? Not the stuff you get at the service station, but the kind from the specialty candy shops. You unwrap that piece and savor every bite, letting the rich flavor melt on your taste buds, and when it's gone, you want more, just one more piece, please. That's what it's like to read A Passion Redeemed by Julie Lessman. This book is filled with characters that will linger long after the book is finished.
Charity O'Connor--misguided in the past by her emotions, lack of faith and confusion about a father's love will steal your heart. You'll soon be cheering her on as she discovers what real faith, real love and living real is all about.
Mitch Dennehy--has had a rough road too, dumped by Charity's sister, Faith (A Passion Most Pure) has left him raw and hurting, but Faith left him with a strong faith of his own.
Once again, Lessman has found a place on my KEEPER shelf. This book will be reread again and again. This writer knows how to turn a phrase and keep the pages turning.

Julie Lessman's A Passion Redeemed is a wonderful book! Lessman writes emotion like the pro she is. And gives her readers more twists and turns than the wildest roller coaster ride. I can't wait for the next book in the Daughters of Boston series! Don't miss A Passion Redeemed!

In 1919 Dublin Charity O'Connor loves Mitch Dennehy, but he seems to ignore her. Desperate for him to reciprocate her feelings, she starts flirting with Mitch's enemy, black sheep Rigan Gallagher III, to make her beloved jealous and take notice of her.

Mitch is disturbed with Charity's behavior. He wants her and believes he is half way in love with her though he condemns her actions and worries what Rigan might do to her. Mitch is also is a deeply pious person and needs his woman to love and cherish God above herself or her mate. He knows Charity does not and her recent behavior affirms his belief.

The second Julie Lessman early twentieth century "Daughters of Boston" passion historical romance (see A PASSION SO PURE) is a superb character driven inspirational tale. Charity owns the story line as she goes from Machiavellian plotter using people to a profound feeling of shame until she gains faith and with that new wisdom. However, she also understands regretfully her new understanding of God's way may be too late for her when it comes to Mitch. A PASSION REDEEMED is a terific tale of redemption as a lost sheep finds conviction.

Harriet Klausner

When I bought this book, I hope to discover some facts about piano making and I am happy with the purchase. This is a good book for everyone because is the point of view of a writer and is the general view just like everyone who isn't in the piano world just piano technicians, piano teachers, buyers,dealers; is great for pianists, musicians and all the people who wants to know how is the making of a piano for one of the greatest piano makers, isn't a technical book, have historical facts in the way of anecdotic, humorous, and some factory language.

Steinway pianos are my favorite. Being that I am a professional country/blues pianist, if I can't play a Steinway, I would rather not play! James Barron wrote an historical account of the making of a Steinway. The piano is still made the way they started since the 1800's. No assembly line, no plastic parts, and no artificial wood. They are constructed by hand and skilled craftsmanship.

Why buy a $400.00 piano made in China? That is an insult not only to beginning and professional pianists, but an insult to the piano itself. In 2000, the piano celebrated it's 300th anniversary. Piano is the most famous house hold instrument.

This book is enjoyable, and educational even to those who do not play, but love to hear the glorious 88 keys hitting the strings. The harpsichord was a for runner of the piano. The difference was, you may beat the keys as hard as you can, but you still only received one level of sound. Strings were plucked, and the piano was made for the hammers to hit the strings. The harder you played, the louder a piano sounded. The piano changed the history of the world. I think two of the greatest pianist is Floyd Cramer, and Roger Williams.

Steinway takes you deep into the heart of their factory, and shows you how a piano is meant to be built and played. The history is fascinating.

K-0862 became a living...feeling...emotional entity by the end of this book........A very very original idea (to breath life into this piano) and well written. Actually EXTREMELY WELL WRITTEN book...My NEW favorite among all books...right up there with OVER THE EDGE OF THE WORLD......... The two most enjoyable....... educational........ books I have ever read!!!!!! KUDOS!!!!!!! I hated when i got to the end of this one!!!!!!

I took my copy of "Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand" to the beach with me. I read it in 4 days! Mr. Barron infuses a wealth of information into a wonderful story about this piano,and oh so much more. Before you know it K-0862 is a character you care about. I cannot imagine anyone not finding something to love about this book!!! Masterfully written!

Excellently and diligently written, this little book tells the story of one Steinway concert grand piano from conception to adolescence. Barron loves the piano, respects the Company, and is dilgent in showing the evolution of Steinway, as well as the creation of one, new opus - a 9 foot concert piano. Barron introduces us to the barons of Steinway and the individual craftsmen who hand make these excellent instruments. To me, the quality and individual character of each Steinway piano are no longer a mystery.

Each time I play my own small grand piano (a quality A B Chase, close replica of the Steinway model S), I think of the efforts that went into it. Unlike Yamahas and such, the Steinway is an almost hand-built piano from a Company which has never relented in its determination to produce the best.

The book also explains why age is not all that becoming in the tonal life of a piano. The instrument has a birth, a development, and an aging process which are measured in tonal character progress, not just years. The aged Steiway seems a time integral of all that has come before - including hundred year old designs and techniques, and all the way up to its last tuning.

If you think a piano is a piano, is a piano, Barron's book will change your outlook.

A friend maintains that "very few conspiracies don't get found out".. this is definitely true in this case, but how many other experiments have been done on children, perhaps wards of the state in numerous states using private agencies subcontracting with state child care agencies that we might never hear about?

Of particular interest is the Fernald school chapter, where MIT researchers befriended vulnerable kids and traded "friendship" and "caring" for doses of irradiated milk the kids were made to drink without their knowledge or consent in Massachusetts.

The release of Eileen Welsome's book "THE PLUTONIUM FILES- America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War" in paperback will hopefully make this important book more accessible to the general public.

Detailing the effort of the US government to test the effects of Plutonium and other radioactive substances on people, the book outlines first the creation and evolution of the nuclear program that created the need for such testing, and then the US government's attempt to conduct such testing on its own citizens without their knowledge or informed consent. On strictly a superficial level there is much here which will attract the "x-files" crowd: Super-secret installations, eccentric scientists and far-fetched experiments on unsuspecting citizens. The kind of information that makes conspiracy theorists sit back from their computers in darkened little rooms, pump their fist in the air and utter that now-hackneyed phrase: "The truth is out there"

Fortunately for the reader, Welsome assiduously avoids such sensationalism and instead draws a largely compassionate picture of the US government's program and of the people who perpetrated it and who participated in it. Welsome's well structured and organized account of the growth of the plutonium testing programs involving critically ill persons across America during the Cold War years teems with information and insight, yet it manages to treat victim and perpetrator alike with a measure of respect and empathy that places this book well above the level of the standard "Shocking Expose". To her great credit Welsome goes beyond merely packaging the results of her extensive research and alarming discoveries in a "tell-all" book.

Certainly, THE PLUTONIUM FILES introduces information which, by its nature is bound to shock and disturb many, but the book also addresses the too-often forgotten issue of context: Was what happened acceptable by the standards of the time in which it occurred? In addressing this question Welsome probes more deeply into her subject, examining the duality, the moral dichotomy, inherent in the decision to implement this program. In a time when the world was still dealing with the results of a devastating world war and the possibility of another seemed likely the need for answers had an immediacy which could be ignored only at the world's peril. Hard decisions had to be made and extraordinary measures taken; Welsome is clearly cognizant of this as she assess each program and as she examines and balances the need against the action and its end result, the author treats the reader to some of her best analysis.

The Plutonium Files- America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War is certainly an important book; one which adds a significant chapter to the recorded history of the growth of atomic science. Despite its scientific topic and exhaustive sourcing the books narrative is direct and engaging, its organization straightforward and its conclusions informed and objective. A book that is well worth its price, Welsome's book would be a great Christmas present for everyone from an avid historian to the omni-present x-files fan; who will find much in here to confirm their most exotic fears. Overall an excellent book for which the author has received two much deserved awards.

This book was completely amazing.

First, you want to be appalled {as well you should} with the amount and type of experiments that were carried out {radioactive cocktails for pregnant women!!}. How could anyone do this to another person??

Then, you think of the people in your own life who have gotten bone marrow transplants, or radiation treatment for cancer. It gets harder to hold the original doctors as evil monsters. Don't misunderstand me - informed consent is a must. How do you inform them of outcomes that are absolutely unknown - how do you start to know?

I thought a lot about this book as I read it, and continue to think about it now that I'm done. I'm sure there must be a middle ground between what they did, and what needed to be done. It is riveting and amazing.

This book has been haunting me since I finished it almost a year ago. How could we justify human experimentation? In the name of national security in the time of war? In the name of national pride in the age of nuclear arm race? Or, simply for the sake of personal career advancement? The answer is: WE CANNOT. What strikes me is that some of the scientists in question were building their career and reputation by conducting these secret experimentation. They were enjoying their fame and success while their victims and many generations after (if the victims still managed to have children) continued to suffer. What disgusts me the most is that even in the final moment of their life some of these scientists still denied any wrong-doing. When I read to that part, my heart ached and I could not hold back my tears, for I was a scientist too. Now a year later, I am still haunted by those stories. But more so I have come to realize a new question: If those experiments were done on other animals instead of human, would the book still raised the same controversy and interest?

This book is scary to say the least. It is well researched and details what is a practice probably still going on today in experiements we do not know about. I was particularly troubled by the Fernald school, where unwanted kids were befriended by MIT researchers who took them on trips and gave them presents in return for the kids drinking radioactive milkshakes. Was some of this done to generate data for use in bringing the first commercial microwave to market by Raytheon?

I was a guinea pig of sorts growing up in state child care and years later was confronted in an interview with what i suspect was a NSA employee as to whether i knew what " a controlled experiment is". As a young child, a former Pentagon official befriended me and tracked me,keeping files for research purposes over a 20+ year period.

Whitey Bulger is alleged to have been a participant in the MK Ultra experiments involving LSD.

I strongly recommend this and Jonathan Harr's "A Civil Action" to anyone!

That's what Helen Thayer said when the natives told her she needed a dog team for protection against polar bears. They said you won't hear the bears when they sneak up on your tent at night. She said she'd take just one and that one was Charlie. And, wow what a dog...not used to humans...not a pet, but a bear dog. Luckily they bonded quickly and he not only saved her life more than once, he also became her beloved friend.

All of her books are great reads and this one is at the top of the list.

I have not actually read this book, but today I listened to the author present the story in person while showing some of the pictures that she took during the journey. It is nothing short of remarkable to witness the sheer determination that made her success possible.

Of course, determination was less than half the battle. Thayer explained that it took her two years of meticulous planning and rigorous training to prepare for every possible contingency she might encounter on the journey. Clearly she could not have hoped to succeed without such detailed and thoughtful preparation.

This story certainly inspired my respect and admiration, not only for the power of the mind to carry us beyond perceived limitations, but also in response to the human-canine connection which was pivotal to the successful completion of the journey. It is heartwarming to hear of the bond that developed between Thayer and Charlie as one sustained the other through the various hardships they encountered.

A great book! It is so exciting that it is very difficult to put it down! After reading it, I ordered a total of 10 copies as presents for relatives and friends.

Great book. Helen Thayer set off in her 50s to walk to the magnetic North Pole. She did it only with Charlie, the polar bear wonder dog, given (sold) to her by the Inuit who were sure she wouldn't survive without a dog team who knew how to fend off polar bears. She finally agreed to taking one dog, who became her true partner in the journey (and afterward). The story is an outstanding tale of what she learned about herself and how she and Charlie so totally bonded, mutually dependent on each other. Helen prepared well and clearly fully respects Nature in all senses. It is also a wonderful tale about Charlie--about the intelligence of dogs we people would see more often if we just give them a chance to be themselves. This is an outstanding book for anyone of any age and hopefully will help more people understand the criticality and fragility of Nature, and the importance of treating animals (in this case, dogs) with true respect, care, compassion, and love. The book clearly shows the intelligence not just of Charlie, but also of the various polar bears Helena encountered (and successfully avoided attack from, without killing them). It also is an excellent book to get people thinking about themselves and their thoughts. Some of the lessons Helen learned, for example, included early on learning to say "no" as well as the importance of remaining positive and in control even when Nature seemed to be in control via a strong storm whirling around her for several days at a time. She includes photos from her journey, which also are amazing. An exciting, excellent book. I highly recommend this for everyone.

I am a big fan of stories of artic adventure, and this is one of the best. In this day of snow mobiles and ATVs, we have a woman at 50 -- author Helen Thayer -- setting out to walk to the magnectic north pole, pulling her own sled and accompanied by an Inuit dog she had only known for a couple of days. On her first day out, she suffers such terrible frostbite of her fingers they become almost useless. (I would have called it quits right there.) Then come polar bears -- one the world's most deadliest creatures. And they keep on coming. Some curious, some life-threatening. But, she continues on her amazing journey, not for fame or fortune, but for scientific information for her program Adventure Classroom. There are some fantastic photos included and very helpful maps. Her writing style is breezy and compelling. It's trimph of the human spirit and the bonding of a dog and companion. What a terrific book.

The four books we ordered are faithful reproductions of the original published many years ago.

I first bought this cookbook over 27 years ago during a trip through Louisiana after I first got married and it is the most worn cookbook in my extensive collection. It absolutely is one of the best cookbooks I have ever used!

Lots of truly tasty traditional Louisiana recipes. All recipes are simple enough for the complete novice to serve up food like a pro. I've used this book for years and have never been disappointed in any recipe.

I am from the South. Cooking is a hobby and I collect cookbooks. I have had this book for about 30 years. In my opinion, this is the best all around Southern cookbook you can buy. In addition, it contains the best Creole recipes.

When I look through a cookbook, the first thing I check is that the ingredients are correct. It is amazing how wrong some can be. This cook book sets the standard.

There are about 3 later editions of this book which are good, but they do not compare to this, the original.

You will be more successful if you can try an authentic Creole dish before you try to make one yourself. That way you will know what you are aiming for.

I always go here first when I'm looking for something new, and many of our family's favorite recipes are in this book. I've given countless copies as gifts, which are always appreciated once the recipients start trying out the recipes. We discovered this treasure when my sister went to LSU years ago (we lived in Connecticut at the time), and have been grateful ever since. We also use all of the subsequent River Road editions.

This is an amazing work, which draws you into the mystiques of our past and makes us seem so inconsequential in the greater scheme of lives gone by.

I have lived in Northern Arizona for most of my life and visit Sedona often. This book, with its wonderful images and text, make the reader feel like they are in Sedona. As a photographer I find the images outstanding and the messages in the text inviting.

Elegant and unique - the best of it's kind! This book is one that I enjoy over and over again, enriched each time by the authors' reverent vision and writings about this sacred and profoundly beautiful landscape.

The new edition's 22 Hikes are described and well organized (i.e. Easy Hikes, Hikes along Water, Hikes to Arches, Hikes into Canyons, Vista Hikes and Loop Hikes) and are wonderful for all levels of ability. I keep this book out for guests and visitors to see and have given it as a gift to out-of-town guests. Lindahl's photography and writings blend the beauty of Sedona in both mystical and poetic ways. I was especially impressed with the combination of rich native historical information and journal narratives that create a sense of being in the timelessness of the place. This book gives me a new appreciation of the natural world through the author's keen attention to detail and the way his profound descriptions and relationship to the land keeps me right there with him on his deep and meditative journeys.

Arizona Highways Magazine

I love this book. My parents are long time Sedona residents, and every time I visit them I purchase a few of Lindahl's "Secret Sedona's" to take home as gifts from vacation. The photography is phenomenal, as well as the written word, which decribes Sedona in the romantic fashion it is in reality.
An easy read, with pictures worth a thousand words and beautifully laid out, I recommend this book to anyone, whether you live in Sedona, visited Sedona, or have even never been there! (It will make to want to do all of the above.) 5 Stars!!!!!

Secret Sedona illumines, with precision and beauty, Sedona's swirled red rock country and its ethereal waters.

Larry Lindahl's photos have such depth that it's worth taking them into the sunshine, to see into the purple shadows.

The layers of his text include Lindahl's journal, cultural and natural history, plus a thorough index.

But the book isn't a travel guide. Lindahl's text invites the reader to settle in for a slow read, with supple images, riding the edge of the known and unknown in Sedona.

Here is a lasting cache of awe to enjoy, alongside, or far away from, time in Sedona.

-Jane Yett

woderfull,Rabbi Chefitz is a wonderfull story teller and this novel is profaund ,really enjoy it!

The fictional rabbi at the center of this novel is a thoroughly modern mystic who is all too aware that some lessons can be dangerous if the teacher doesn't meet the student where he/she stands. Goldberg's "Bee Season" suggested that mystical strains of Judaism could propel American fiction; Chefitz's "Seventh Telling" proves that American fiction can teach mystical Judaism. "The Seventh Telling" is the more ambitious and more successful of the two novels. It is the best book I've read this year and the only book for which I've ever been moved to offer a testimonial.

This is a powerful,beautifully written novel that has the ability to speak to the reader in many different ways. The first time I read it was for pleasure and I could not put it down. I literally finished the last page and went back to the first page to read it again. Each reading has given me a different level of understanding and I am sure that when I read it again I will learn on still another level. What a rarity for Kabballah to be made so accessible and what a surprise to have it in the form of a very readable novel. You will be swept up in the lives of the characters and captivated by the stories. I am looking forward to the sequel that is due out next year!

I don't know why this book called my name as I chanced upon it at a bookstore. But, it did. I picked it up, began reading, read at every opportunity, ordered the sequel before I was finished, moved right on to the sequel, and am now re-reading the first book. I even e-mailed Mitchell Chefitz (he answered my e-mail, by the way). I hardly recognize myself.

This book is transformative. It took this hard-headed realist into the nature of mysticism, slowly, evenly and intelligently. (I think the ancient kabbalists were on to quantum mechanics well before the 20th century physicists were.) It can be read on so many levels that there is something in it for everybody.

It changed my view of death. Read it.

Certain books call to me. Most books I won't buy until I've read and analyzed all the reviews on Amazon, but this book I picked up in a bookstore, read til the store closed, and then at every opportunity until I finished it. The narrative is real enough to be believable, but strongly tinged with the mystical, and works at many different levels. The telling of stories to teach and heal is an art and science, and Mitch Chefitz has mastered both ends of the spectrum with this extraordinary work.

have a problem with using words like "brilliant", "masterful" and "intelligent." But willing apply all words to this brilliant book, masterfully research and intelligently told.

The author gives a very full and complete treatise on Brown versus the Board of Education, but of greater interest, he writes of all the history that lead up to the ruling.

An exceptional book chronicling an extremely important issue in our country's history.

This is certainly the best book ever written -- the best book that ever will be written -- about race, law and American society. It is a remarkably insightful history and one of the most stunning existing examples of narrative journalism. It is a masterpiece.

I'm a fan of nonfiction works and this easily moved to my top 5 favorite books. When I was growing up there were no courses on the contributions blacks made to America. There was no black history month. And I was cheated. I'm a 50+ white woman who lived through desegregation and had no clue that it was a struggle. I honestly don't remember a time when my elementary classes were all white but they must have been. I do remember clearly when my elementary class stopped being all white. That was when Richard Harris became my Batman buddy. On the aftenoons following the show we would go to the neighborhood soda shop and have a coke and discuss all the action of the previous evening's show and check for new Batman bubble gum cards with the intensity that only 5th graders can bring to such an important endeavor. It felt normal to chat Batman with Richard; and I'm so sorry for all the children that had such a dumb practice as segregation rob them of those moments.

This book read like a thiriller for me. Couldn't put it down. Underlined and highlighted parts. Read other sections out loud to my husband and to some friends at work. This is American history. Everyone should have the opportunity to learn about the value of education, the value of varied experiences and the perseverance to acquire the rights that should never have been denied to the black people. It's made me hungry to know more and I'll be keeping my eye out for other works by Kluger. Excellent author.

I just finished this book, A Simple Justice, and it is fantastic. It's the story of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, which is the landmark Supreme Court case that desegregated compulsory public schools in America. But it's so much more than that. After reading this book, I felt almost ashamed of my previous ignorance to the struggles and condition of black america at the hands of almost everyone else in the country. It is comprehensive in its scope and perspicacious in its analysis, sparing no feelings on either (or rather, any) side. I believe myself to be, for the most part, a judicious man when it comes to philosophical or sociological observations, but Kluger was able to open my eyes to angles I had previously missed on issues I thought I had resolved long ago. So if you're not too scared of big books, this one's worth the time.

Long a mainstay of every 1L's pre-law school summer reading list, SIMPLE JUSTICE is more than a retelling of the tortured history of the landmark cases now known collectively as Brown v. Board of Ed. It is more than a retelling of the agonizing struggles of both gifted and ordinary people---black and white and every other---to reverse the four centuries of racial disparagement that make up the ugliest of all underpinnings of the American Experiment. What SIMPLE JUSTICE is, is an exhaustive sociological history of race relations in the United States to the 1950s.

It is a book every American should read. The endemic quality of racism in the American psyche is so overwhelming that it is easy to lose the human element. SIMPLE JUSTICE restores that element with sensitive, intelligent writing, exhaustive and documented research, and a tone which is pitch perfect, strident when need be, reasoned and thoughtful throughout. Ultimately optimistic, SIMPLE JUSTICE will renew your belief in the American system even while tempering it.

In it's retelling of nightmarish incident after nightmarish incident (the explosive and hideous lynchings are often easier to understand than the equally hideous and more subtle segregation and caricaturing that endured for, it seems, ever), SIMPLE JUSTICE shows us an America riven by its view of itself as a noble nation being eaten by the canker in its soul.

Although many Americans now consider race discrimination passe, it is not so hard to see the continuation of a pattern of violence toward blacks and the denigration of the black experience, even today. And yet, there is more, for not only are Black Americans denigrated, but White Americans as well, both suffering because this nation is only a fraction of what it might othewise be.

SIMPLE JUSTICE is a crucial Civics lesson. Read it to learn. Read it to know. Read it. Read it again.

I loved loved this book....I checked it out at our local library and read it cover to cover in two days...Thats a record for me...I love that this woman took a sensible approach to her weight loss and over a course of 4 years, took the weight off. I find it frustrating when all the books tell of 100+ weight loss in a matter of 10-12 months...It made me feel lazy and inadequate to have lost 60 in a year...but not anymore having read this book. So many of the things she went thru I can relate to and know that there is light at the end of the tunnel gives me so much added motivation to keep doing what I am doing and it will pay off...It has already...Definately a book to read over and over again:)

This is a wonderful book showing some ups and more downs of the scale. This woman shows by example in her experience that if we don't follow a food regiment 100% you can still attain your goal of loosing weight. It is really refreshing to read that you can make a goal even when you slip away from it now and then, but you have to not give up. A good read hard to put down.

I bought this book on Saturday and finished it on Tuesday. I could hardly put it down. I also weigh what Sandra did and then some. This book was really motivating and I saw so much of myself in it so I could relate to it. It really gives me hope and shows me I am normal. I have been going to T.O.P.S. since April 2001 and have lost over 30 pounds and began backsliding. Now I see that may happen from time to time and I just need to stay motivated. Thank you for this book.I am a 37 yr. old widow with 2 children and really need to stay on track to be here for them and I think this book will help me.

I enjoyed the spirit with which this book was written. By the time I finished I felt as though I knew Sandra and her wonderful supportive family. I was cheering her on throughout the book. Not only did she lose weight for herself but she chose this time to help others and start up aerobic classes for women who feel left out at most health clubs. Her relationship with Richard Simmons made me smile. They had such mutual respect. It is wonderful that she accomplished what she did, helped others and at the same time wrote an enjoyable uplifting book.

In particular I liked the way she did not hold back her feelings or her problems. She tells it "like it is". I recommend this book even if weight loss is not the goal. She puts a positive spin on other things as well.

Not only is this book the bargain of the year, but it is literally the best diet book ever written. This lady tells her story from the beginning to what is going on today. It is like reading her diary. There are no gaps to the story-which I really appreciated. She tells you every step she took to lose the weight including what exercise she did along the way. She also tells you how your family and friends will react to your weight loss. For anyone who wants a "Step by Step" account of how a friend lost her weight, this is a "must" read. After reading Sandra's book, you feel like you are her friend. Very inspiring with an honest approach to weight loss. I can't say enough about this book!!

"Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System. The First 100 Missions." Long title. Big book. Loads of detail. A treasure for shuttle geeks like me.
This book is packed with mission details and hundreds of rare photographs. One shows a close up of one of the struts that holds the shuttle onto it's 747 carrier. On it are stenciled the words: "PLACE ORBITER HERE. BLACK SIDE DOWN. LEFTY LOOSEY, RIGHTY TIGHTY." Where else are you going to find things like that? It's all here. Pictures, histories, charts, and diagrams. Like the missions chronicled inside, this reasonably-priced book will take some time to analyze and review again and again so you can catch all the details.

I bought this book as a keepsake, but have found it very informative. Shuttle workers and space enthusiasts alike will enjoy this book.

If you want to know more about the developmental history of the Shuttle program, Jenkins' book is for you. Within the books pages there can be found a wealth of information going back to the early 1940s and stopping in the year 2000 with the launch of the 100th shuttle mission. With the conclusion of the program in 2010, I am looking forward to the 4th edition (if one is on the horizon).

gave this book as a gift, there appears to be a lot of information with a lot of pictures.

This is the 3rd Edition, by Dennis Jenkins, which covers the first 100 missions.

This is one of the most, if not the most, comprehensive work on the background, concepts, and evolution that led to our Space Shuttle, for the non-technical reader. I purchased it because whenever I looked up winged spacecraft on the Encyclopedia Astronautica website (itself a marvel of space history; even National Geographic was referred to that site by NASA!), this book was cited as a reference. It has provided me with weeks of enjoyable reading since Christmas, and I'm still not finished with it! Highly illustrated. It will be one of the primary references in my space library for years to come. Hopefully Mr. Jenkins will produce a 4th edition after 2010, after the Shuttle retires, which will cover the Columbia disaster, and the final history of the Space Shuttle. My highest recommendation!