Anthony Books

Tony has created a book that brings the harsh reality of our employment morality to light. Unfortunate truths of our "career" paths, but a beautiful painting of an otherwise possible grim reality. His book brings not only the hurdles of what we must overcome to our attention, but reminds that once we have accepted our roles-as-is, we have unintentionally become defeated. I recommend to all people who think they are "set."

I had the amazing opportunity and pleasure to be one of the individuals who co-founded ProACTIVE Institute along with Tony. In those years, I saw Tony literally change lives with his hard-hitting and heartfelt philosophy. He's the real deal. A person who makes you feel proud to be a part of the human race.
Read the book - then read it again. It will change the way you perceive yourself and our workplace.
As usual, Tony, you've outdone yourself.

P. Anthony Burnham, Esq., prepares readers for the harsh reality that they may only be temporarily employed in today's "permanently changed workplace." Mr. Burnham stresses that successful leaders are self-managing and achieve results through an empowered workforce. Being a successful manager in this complex world requires innovative thinking combined with synthesis to shift employee paradigms. Learning is an ever-changing, continuous process. Mr. Burnham does a great job of identifying some of these paradigms through a case study of past, present, and future workplace changes. He emphasizes the importance of having the ability to create human value within a firm through identifying and communicating a workers worth on demand. He also stresses that creating a personal business plan for your future employment will help to achieve your goals. As a recent graduate from a masters program, this book has helped me prepare to become successfully "employed for life." Thank you Mr. Burnham!

Sincerely, Edwin Joseph Coulter, MBA, MA/HRM

THIS IS A MUST READ FOR ALL EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES ALIKE. THE "VALUE OF YOU" FORMULA IS RIGHT ON AND SHOULD BE THE MANTRA FOR ALL EMPLOYEES. THE BIG DOG IS OUT AND ITS ALL ABOUT STRENGHTS, ACTION AND RESULTS.

Tony Burnham captured the essence of today's corporate employment landscape and put it into a concise and easy to read handbook. He outlines what hiring managers are looking for and how to clearly define and state your value proposition to them. I used the book as a guide during the interview process for a new position at my current Fortune 100 company. Needless to say, it worked and I would highly recommend the book to anyone who wants to invest in their own future growth.

I gave my other book away so I wanted another one. This book started me on the road to self awareness of African culture and religious dogma. Great resource to begin your search.

This is a book that sould be read, when first entering into the African spirit. This is so, because it gets you into the history that would alter your current state of beliefs at a slow pace. It helps you as a first time reader to understand how little you know and how much you have to learn!

I think that says it all. If you are a chicken at heart, this book is not for you. This books tells it like it is, and that is good. We need to know that African Americans are the kings and queens of this world. That how the white man protrays us, is his distorted view. When you want to be like someone you will many times, mock what that person is or has. Mockery is the greatest form of flattery---I read that somewhere---and it is true. Whites want to be like us so badly, they could taste it. This book tells us, what we need to do to get back in line with how the Great Spirit inteneded for us to be. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

This book was the first of Mr. Browder's that I have read and was the foundation for continuing of my education of SELF! I also have the second one in this series which really breaks down religion, civilization, and TRUE history! I don't know about anyone else, but the most I learned in school of my people is that we were naked savages until the good white man came and saved us, which is sooo far from the truth. I don't care if you think you know religion or if you think you know african history, you don't know it to this degree if you haven't read this book and also purchase his next one (Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization). If you can put this down, without a fight, then hats off to you! I read it in one day, that's how thirsty I was/am!

This book should be read by everyone of African descent. Discussed in this book are subjects such as religion, skin color, hair, the need to free your mind, the mysteries of melanin, sports and African Americans, your responsiblity to the future and many many more important topics. At the end of each essay, there are books that Mr. Browder has suggested for further reading. Read and enjoy!

Even though I have read a number of books about ancient Mesopotamia, many of which are focussed on political and economic history rather than on beliefs and religious practices, I am was still very confused about who were the principal gods and goddesses, during what period of time and where they became prominent, and why they were worshipped. The uniformly positive customer reviews of this 192 page book were what persuaded me to buy it , and I was not disappointed.

When I buy a book, however, I do prefer to read it from start to finish, so reading a dictionary in this way is somewhat difficult and it is probably not the best way to read this one. The "gods and goddesses " entry in this dictionary indicate that more than 3000 names have been recovered, and while the book doesn't attempt to describe all of these, it does provide a significant amount of interesting reference material about the beliefs and religious practices of the peoples of Ancient Mesopotamia. Perhaps it would be better to use the term "ruler" or "the elite" rather than the term "peoples" since it is clear that nearly all the available information about the gods, demons, and symbols comes from inscriptions which were either from the rulers or from the priests of the religious institutions.

At the beginning of the book there is a useful author's note on the variant spellings of ancient names which explains the scholarly consensus on the probable pronunciation of the Akkadian and Sumerian languages. This is followed, by a concise introduction which provides summaries on the places and peoples of Mesopotamia, their mythology and legends, their art and iconography and the periods of the various dynasties and a helpful one page chronological table. At the end of the book there is also a short bibliography listing books recommended for further reading.

The bulk of the book consists of about a thousand entries (I didn't count them) on the different deities, religious objects, icons, symbols, and practices, of the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia. Most of these are quite short, although there are a few which run to three or four pages. At least half of them refer to one or more illustrations which are liberally sprinkled throughout the book, and this approach definitely enhanced my understanding of what I was reading. I did get the impression, though, that much of the information about the earlier period comes from the Assyrian kings of the 1st millennium, and while they were heirs to the Sumerian and Akkadian traditions, it is still not clear to me how much of a bias they brought into their inscriptions in order to better serve their own interests

There are 159 illustrations in all, which are a mixture of drawings and very clear black and white photographs. The drawings by Tessa Rickards, the illustrator, are beautifully done, elegantly simple, and in my opinion, bring out the essence of the object of the illustration. While most illustrations are embedded in the text close to the most relevant entry, there are a number which are referred to by several different entries. I found it was quite time consuming to flip around the book to find the references of those which were not close by, so I ended up by using book markers to speed up my search for the most important, which were the groups of illustrations on demons, monsters, and symbols for the gods, and the genealogical table of gods and goddesses. Perhaps there is no way around this, but I think it would have been helpful if there had been an index of the illustrations referenced by time period and page number. It may also have been easier to refer to them if they were included one place, perhaps at the back of the book.

Notwithstanding these minor quibbles about the organization and content of the book, I found that reading it the way I did, was an effective and time efficient way of increasing my depth of knowledge about this aspect of ancient Mesopotamia. It will serve as a useful reference tool for my other books on the civilizations and dynasties of Mesopotamia, and I certainly recommend it to other students who are focussing their studies on this particular subject.

This illustrated dictionary is excellant, and informative. The authors have a knack for noting out of the ordinary tidbits, which enhance their profiles. Unfortunately, they do not recognize that Mythology is 95%
Propaganda. Thus, Ea, called "favorable to man", is in fact the Ultimate
Architect of Evil, who along with his "two-faced" minister Usmu, and the
scribe Nabu, propagated a Revisionist Mythology, that has subjugated and
subverted the 5% Truth, ever since.

"Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia" (An Illustrated Dictionary) is the best resource on the Gods of the different cultures from that region that exists. Though they call it a dictionary, Jeremy Black and Anthony Green (editors) have put together an encyclopedia of knowledge on the subject. They cover Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hurrian mythologies, and touch on several more as well. This review is based off of the fifth edition of the book, which was published in 2003 by the University of Texas Press.

There is a lot of material here, and it would be easy to give this book five stars based on what it does provide. However, as I use this resource I often think about what more they could have done to make it more useful. One big thing would have been more visual resources. I would have liked to see a map section where it shows the various eras and empires and the extent of their control. There is one map near the front of the book, but it provides only a limited view.

A big area of improvement would have been to provide sections instead of including all the material together from A to Z. For example the maps mentioned above could have gone into a geography section which could have also shown the evolution of the city names as they spanned eras, including the modern names for those which still exist. Another section could have covered the kings, queens, and heroes for each of the empires. The section on deities could have covered the evolution of deities as they were adopted by the later empires, as well as the new deities which arose during the passage of time. You will find that some of this material is scattered throughout the resource, but it is not complete, and it is difficult to find unless you already know where to look.

Despite all the things I would have liked to have, I still think this is a very good reference, and one which anyone who studies the ancient history of that region will want to have in their library. It is easy to come up with ideas of ways to improve things, but the work that was done in putting together this reference was exceptional, and as with most things which whet one's appetite, it leaves the reader wanting more.

Excellent resource listing much more than the title would suggest. Black really knows his stuff and generously shares his knowledge. Much better than I thought it would be. Includes all kinds of definitions in great detail. Well written. Highly recommend.

I am saddened to see that this is no longer available. If you are interested in ancient Mesopotamian religion, then this book is needed. It is a perfect resource to get quick information, and provides enough information to conduct further research in the areas. If you are a student taking a class on Mesopotamia, a religious historian, or a Reconstructionist, then this will give you the facts you need at your fingertips.

Modern funerals can be quite expensive, so life insurance can be the easiest answer. But how can you make sure that your life insurance will do what you pay it to do? "Questions and Answers on Life Insurance: The Life Insurance Toolbook" is a guide to help those who are concerned about life insurance policies make the right decisions by analyzing the fine print of it all - the different types of policies, evaluating the companies that hold the policy, trusted agencies, underwriting, and how to make sure your policy doesn't change behind your back. "Questions and Answers on Life Insurance: The Life Insurance Toolbook" is highly recommended to community library collections on personal finance and for anyone who is in the market for a life insurance policy.

Questions and Answers on Life Insurance: The Life Insurance Toolbox
Thank you for your interest in this book. Reviews for this book can be found with this earlier edition. Hope these reviews are useful. Tony Steuer, Author.

Tony's honest and unbiased approach to the presentation of the material is the perfect format for actually learning about Life Insurance. There is much knowledge to gain about what is construed as a potentially complex area of financial protection. If you are in the market to purchase Life Insurance, this is the book for you.

It's great tool to validating the complex information on life insurance and easier to understand than most text material.

For the beginning insurance agent, this is a very good book. Insurance products are very complex and sometimes difficult to explain, this book helps and could even be used to help answer prospective clients questions while presenting. I am glad I own this book.

This book, my all-time favorite novel, was Anthony Hyde's first novel and to appreciate it you have to remember that in 1984, when this novel was published, there was no Internet, no Google, very few electronic methods of getting information. Hyde's protagonist, Robert Thorne, a former journalist, is a Russian history expert who is drawn into a mystery that consumes him to the end. Thorne is a very likable gentleman, no quirks, utterly normal. When Thorne probes the mystery surrounding him, he uses time-honored methods of finding information, such as the Bettmann Archive, talking to people involved, etc. whereas today most journalists can simply Google someone.

As for the plot, if you've ever read Graham Greene's "The Third Man", you'll find some similiarities. Because Hyde uses the 1st person, we get every thought that Thorne is thinking, and so you get a sense of an updated Mickey Spillane "hard-boiled detective" novel, too.

Because Hyde was writing his first novel, he avoids many of the "hack" techniques other writers often employ, there are no cliches, no gratuitous sex scenes and no inane dialogue.

You can see where Hyde gets some inspiration, though; there's a little bit from "The Godfather", a scene where Thorne is in a restaurant in Leningrad, talking to a Russian KGB agent, that is straight out of "Casablanca".

But, these are quibbles - I love this book and it's replaced "Doctor Zhivago" as my fave novel of all time.

I've destroyed my copy from having read it over and over. This used to be in my father's bookshelf until I was bored as a young lady and absconded with it (SHHHHHHH. That was about ??(mutter mutter mutter) years ago.

I love Soviet history, particularly anything to do with the Russian Revolution and execution of the Tsar. This dances around it through the whole book. There's unrequited love and history and political intrigue. How can you go wrong there? Wonderful intelligent and captivating.

THere's my two cents.

This is a very readable book. The storyline is ever developing and doesn't necessarily lead you where you think it will. It also was refreshing to read a story in the first person, that did not spend enormous amounts of time building themselves up to be experts in this or that or telling you how with-it they were by wearing name brand clothes.

It is a mystery story that is believable in its development and execution. You can identify with the main character, because it could be your next door neighbour. And as an added bonus, there is a lot of information about the Soviet Union that is interesting to know. Good book!

I've read well over 1000 novels in my life, but after this one, I felt compelled to write a review. I'm not saying it's THE best story I've ever read, but it's the most engrossing book I've tackled this year hands down. The well-conceived plot is absolutely impossible to guess and the settings are unique when compared to the cliched L.A. or N.Y. settings of most of today's bestsellers. Get this one before it's out of print.

This is one of my favorites of the cold war fictions. I loved the location descriptions and choices; you start in North American and just keep going east. This is a smart, fun book that gives the reader a great story and a lot of interesting historical facts about Russia. This really is a book that has two - three very well developed and written plot twists that makes you stay on your toes. I have reread the book and it is something how well he places the road signs. This is a great book; unfortunately he was not able to keep up this form into his next.

I found this book to rehash information found in many other sources. It covers a wide range of topics, but none in sufficient detail. A good overview of the topics; for detailed information look elsewhere.

I have a nice little library of books that would put a small library to shame, but I find myself connected to a few much like the kid with his favorite teddy bear. Well, this book is like that teddy bear. I carry it 2 miles each day to and from work. Any good book is invaluable to a job/certification. This is one of them!

I read the entire book over the last few weeks and found that is was very helpful in giving me a better understanding of networking. I learned a lot about the basics and a ton about the advanced aspects of NT networking. I found out about how to use key NT tools and the book was a great resource.

I don't usually take the time to come back and comment on a book unless it's very bad. In this case the book is way better than I've come to expect from most NT books. There were so many extra topics in the book that I don't think I've seen elsewhere. Important registry setting are listed and explained but not ALL of them (with no explaination) just what is important. I liked the IP Management section and DNS overview. The capacity planning section that somebody else here mentioned was excellent and the tuning and troubleshooting chapter had a great section on problem resolution. It covers a very wide range of topics relating to NT and networking and does it very well.

-Tom

This book, along with Tony Northrup's Windows NT Plumbing, will put you a step above your other NT peers. Both of these books go into the nitty gritty details of how NT REALLY works in the real world and how best to deploy and configure it.

Both are excellent primers on networking and TCP/IP as well as NT specifics. Highly recommended.

The book is amazing and easy for read [ASIN:0809115093 Beginning to Pray]. I am concerned about the way we pray and what we are supposed to wait from pray. The book shows that we may be searching the wrong way, and addressed me to improve may pray.

My spiritual director recommended this book to me. The book guides me in my spiritual life and is clear in its message.

I am reading this book for the 5th time, and I just got finished leading a study group for it. Each time I read it, it is as if it's brand new. English is not the author's first language, so some of the wording is a little choppy at first. He phrases things a bit differently than English speaking people, but once you get used to his style you can't help but be challenged and encouraged in your personal relationship with God. I think an appropriate sub-title for this book could be: How to have a personal relationship with the living God. His first chapter "The Absence of God" hits a topic that all of us have experienced at one time or another - Why does God seem so far away? I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in deepening his walk with God. Among many things, it will challenge you to be authentic before God, show you how to be still before God, and demonstrate how to live in the present moment - practicing the presence of God.

The apostle Paul tells us "we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs to deep for words."

This little book by Anthony Bloom will help any person find the way to a prayer life breathed with the Spirit's life.

Anthony Bloom's Beginning to Pray is not just for beginners in prayer. In it, Bloom offers practical suggestions for novices in prayer and profound insights for even the most spiritually mature. Bloom draws from a life rich in challenges and communication with people and God in myriad circumstances. His writings of prayer reveal the mysteries that open to a person who prays in God's presence often.

The introduction to the book is the transcript of an interview of the author answering questions about his life and ministry. The interview illustrates his qualifications to write a book on prayer. It also shows that his is a remarkable life journey that has taken him from Russia to the Orient to France. He worked his way through college to become a surgeon, eventually being conscripted by the Germans after the occupation of France. He then became ordained as monk in 1948 and served as a monk and a surgeon before leaving his medical practice for ministry.

His first point in writing of prayer emphasizes our state before God. People at some point will face God, and when they do, they will receive salvation or condemnation. He encourages readers to accept their desperate state and to go to God asking for and receiving mercy. Then prayer can begin. Otherwise, God is outside of us and cannot hear. Prayer will be sent to the unknown.

Bloom urges readers to develop a passion for God at the expense of the possessions of the world. He reminds readers that one must take up his or her cross daily to follow Jesus. Bloom offers readers ways to experiment with types of prayers to find what suits them. These include written prayers like psalms, short prayers like the "Jesus Prayer, praying with icons or spontaneous prayers. What is important writes Bloom is that those praying believe in their own prayers and pray heartily not haphazardly to God. He also exhorts readers on the importance of sitting quietly in one's room away from the distractions of the world. To Bloom, practicing silence before God is a key to closeness with God in prayer.

For Bloom, those "crises" in our lives that would become excuses not to pray are the very dangers that should prompt us to pray. Let nothing stop you from entering into quiet time before the Lord. He devotes a chapter to managing time and prayer.

The final chapter entitled "Addressing God" discusses the necessity of a personal relationship with God as opposed to a functional relationship with God. This idea critiques a relationship where readers see God as serving a purpose only in their lives versus a relationship with him in which he is the object and desire. This personal relationship requires us to call God by a name that is personal and address him not vaguely but as someone known.

Bloom's insights target intensity, passion, relationship and time in prayer. I think all Christians often need to begin again in prayer. This book is a tool to help readers do just that and to analyze their prayer lives and see where they stand. Bloom offers several ways to "experiment" with prayer, and these are useful. The main impact for me in this book is his emphasis on taking prayers seriously. He writes that if we want God to listen and act on our prayers we must pray earnestly and sincerely with thoughtfulness and heart.

He adds two meditations at the end of the book. One I found instructive and one I did not find helpful.

Craig Stephans, author of Shakespeare On Spirituality: Life-Changing Wisdom from Shakespeare's Plays

This book is an outstanding read. Concise, to the point and loaded with facts pertaining to the issue at hand make this a refresher course to bring the layman up to speed on his First Amendment knowledge and what it does and does not cover.

Read this book(!) if you care about the freedoms we enjoy in America or wonder about the limits that have been placed on them. It is history.., but the book reads like a set of short stories. It is enlightening, insightful, surprising, engaging, and down right scary in parts (the whos and whys of many court decisions) . Whether your interests are in freedoms related to speech, the press, or privacy, or all of the above; this is your primer.

In this brief history of the First Amendment one sees the array of interests that have so decisively shaped the interpretation of the First Amendment. Racism, religion, history, and politics are just a few of the more obvious forces that have shaped and reshaped the laws governing our freedoms. Less obvious forces that Lewis highlights are just as intriguing. Experiencing, through Lewis' non academic writing style, the chronology of events and court decisions, from Dred Scott to Guantanamo related (habeas corpus) decisions, this is a great read.

The fact that a book like this is even being written for the layman is very encouraging. It demonstrates that there is an emerging interest in what our freedoms are, how they evolved to this point, and by extension, how they can continually be refined to satisfy our ever changing needs as a "liberal democracy".

If you know the "enemies" of the First Amendment, you will be better prepared to fight them. If you know the effects of excesses in freedoms, you will be more likely to avoid them. Lewis gives you both, along with his humble thoughts on the major issues addressed in his book.

Thank you Mr. Lewis for taking the time to write this book. I cannot stop talking to friends, colleagues, and strangers about how it has brought to my attention just how recent our "freedom of speech" really is. Although our founding fathers might have written the text over 200 years ago, men and women were still being jailed under the libel laws and Sedition Acts. Current and future reporters please read this book and use it as a reminder of the importance of your role in our democracy, by keeping our leaders honest with your thorough research and candid accounts. Every American should read this book!

Unless a person goes to law school, it is unlikely that he or she will learn the 200 year old history of the First Amendment...yet is is a fascinating and necessary history to learn. The thesis of the book is that our common notion of what "freedom of speech and press" means in America is not self evident law. In fact, the author explains, our right to criticise the government and its leaders was developed and protected by "activist judges."

Think about the role of activist judges - many of whom are criticised today in certain political circles. Anthony Lewis reminds us that American activist judges used the language that all persons are born free and equal to issue rulings that slavery was against the law as early as 1783. 150 years later it was again activist judges and lawyers who struck down the Espionage Act of World War I which punished speech against the war. So it was only in the twentieth century that the First Amendment was used to protect free speech and condemn a statute that infringed this liberty.

Author Anthony Lewis takes us on a historical journey through First Amendment cases from its beginnings in the constitutional convention to its interpretation by the Jeffersonians and the Federalists to Woodrow Wilson's oppressive statutes, and finally to the more recent cases of flag desecration and the Patriot Act. Mr. Lewis is clear headed and forceful in his history and arguments. As I see it, this volume is one of the top 10 books on the law that I have ever read. I suggest it as a gift to your sons and daughters, to your high school or college students who care about what America means. Highly recommended.

One of my favorite things about reading history is getting a perspective on how new some ideas are even when they feel like they've been around forever. This book absolutely has that effect... and it's a really healthy thing.

Lewis does a nice job of laying out the history of free speech. He starts before the founding of the United States, but spends most of his time exploring the development of the right since the United States founding. What you see is how, even in two short centuries, the understanding of freedom of speech has evolved into what we take for granted today.

Starting with the Alien and Sedition Acts during John Adams presidency and working his way forward, you really come to understand that the freedom of speech we enjoy today is far in excess of what citizens of the very same country enjoyed 200, 100, or even 50 years back. It's truly fascinating to get that perspective and it helps you to understand that rights can go as easily as they can come if they aren't defended vigilantly and vigorously.

Highly recommended for fans of history or for anyone who wants to understand a little more about where one of America's fundamental rights came from. Lewis has written a clear, concise history of an idea and a right.

This book was a little wordy, even for someone who has incorporated a for-profit before. But the information is very consistent, and the forms provided and website references make this a very handy book to start with. Just make sure you want the right kind of 501(c)(3) that this book is written for first (public benefit), or he continually reinforces that this book is not right for you!

I find this really helpful and well written and organized as a book. The CD ROM with the forms are really helpful too (though I found an editing error in one of the forms..but nothing too major...just a spelling mistake (a typing error), that's all). I'm quite ready and less confused now that I have read this book. It also helps me to stop and think more about my organizational plan and such, so that it'll fit with the regulations about incorporation of non profit and the tax exempt status.

I was looking through the books on non-profit formation in a local bookstore, in downtown Palo Alto and ran into this title: my jaw dropped at the fact that there was such a perfect title for my needs. Not only was the book appropriately titled but the content helped me and my wife through the unfamiliar steps we had to take in order to incorporate our non-profit, Diabetes Hands Foundation, in California.

I recommend, along with it, The Budget-Building Book for Nonprofits: A Step-by-Step Guide for Managers and Boards and Managing a Nonprofit Organization in the Twenty-First Century. These three titles have been at the heart of the non-profit-related instruction we have picked up on in the past couple of months.

This is an excellent manual which answers all of the procedural and operating questions anyone could have about this topic. I heartily recommend it.

I am in the process of forming a nonprofit organization to benefit people with brain injury. An attorney friend suggested that I purchase this book which gives guidelines for setting up a nonprofit organization in California. Being a novice in the field of start up companies I have found this book to be without exception easy to understand and follow and gives you samples of forms and detailed explanations on how to file them with your local, state, and federal government. I would recommend this book to anyone who is in the process of beginning a nonprofit even if you have previous experience. It gave me the assurance that forms would be filed properly and the advise on writing the bylaws to the company.

Cooper's first two novels (Amnesia and Delirium) are amazing books and deal with very subtle corners of human mind; they left me nightmarish for days, and they are not terror novels, they are just extremely disturbing. I love them both: they are intelligent and strange and rich in every sense.

I ordered Milrose Munce as soon as I realized it was published, and was not dissapointed. It is written by the same witty and inteligent author, although in his playful side...and he certainly has one. If you want to check that out, look into his web page, dysmedia.com.

I'm extremely happy that this book exists, and hope to see it translated into many languages soon.

Do read it!

f you're bored of reading what everybody else is reading then you're
going to be a happy girl when you pick this book up. It's the most
unboring thing I've read this year, actually that's an insult, it's
GUT RIOT HILARIOUS and actually really smart. Thisis the kind of book
Emily the Strange would write if she wrote books, or she'd at least
want someone to write this book about her. Actually there are a lot
of characters which remind me of Emily the Strange, so if you like
that whole thing, or love it like I do you should definitely
DEFINITELY read MM.

Lad, I regret to inform you that your book is wonderful; sweet and weird and irreverent, absurdly light on its feet -- and infectious in timbre. I'm not particularly inclined to be so supportive -- leastways not 'til you come across with a little quid pro quo -- but the goofy good mood engendered by
the book so demands. Consider me a reluctant convert. I'll buy plenty.

Eh, I don't buy much other than graphic novels these days. Not because I'm illiterate, but because they're just BETTER, for the most part. I was pressured to buy Milrose Munce, because a friend of mine - brilliant cartoonist - is in love with the cover. So I bought it, and read it, and... Damn. The novel's EXCELLENT, it's hilarious. (So's the cover, btw - this SHOULD be a graphic novel.) If you haven't heard about it yet, it's an ridiculously wacky Young Adult novel - more like a spoof of YA, for kids who are too self-consciously ironic to read the really sappy stuff. It has THE weirdest love story I've ever encountered (and I've seen some strange ones). Buy it. And frame the cover. Do it now.

A cunningly subversive young-adult novel from one of the only living writers of English who knows how to craft a sentence.

Nearly every sentence in this book is elegantly fashioned. Some examples:

"Milrose did sometimes wonder whether his school produced more dead students than the average."

"No, he had never been the sort of boy to laugh at his own shortcomings, and when the pellets he dramatically swallowed turned out to be not Vitamin C but instead expensive first-class rat poison, he was deeply annoyed."

"Being late for Math was something Milrose occasionally enjoyed, and yesterday had felt like the right kind of day to be irresponsible."

"The dear decayed on the third floor were nothing like the dull dead on the floors below."

"Kelvin bent to sit down, and immediately shattered into ice cubes, which melted mournfully all over the floor."

"On a tedious Monday a few months back Kelvin had been particularly inspired."

"The gigglers became squealers as the skeleton whirled daintily in their direction."

"Mr. Loosten, who affected an insincere, jocular informality with the students, sat partially on the desk, with one foot on the floor and the other swinging."

"She was wearing faded crushed velvet, once something like violet: a dress far too long for her, and whose worn fringe trailed behind her like the train of a weird wedding gown."

"It was a game of chicken, but slow and infinitely strange."

"The hallway itself turned that way, and all they had to do was follow it."

"The words _comfortable_ and _cozy_ seemed to vie with each other for status as the bigger whopping lie with respect to Massimo Natica's den."

"Displayed in various places around the den were singular objects, some propped against the walls, others in glass vitrines---possessions that were clearly dear to the den's proprietor."

"Although he wasn't entirely keen to, Milrose opened one of the drawers. The drawer was clearly teasing him."

"Each had a tiny bulb above the drawer's metal-framed label, and these bulbs all seemed on the verge of winking out completely."

Dennis Anthony Cooper may be his generation's Nabokov.

---Joseph Suglia, the author of WATCH OUT