Bats Books

I can't recommend this book enough to Quicken users. Not only does it provide illustrated step-by-step instructions for using Quicken's features, but it includes a wealth of information about personal finance. I learned many new things about investments, loans, and getting out of debt, all of which will help me make and save money. For me, this book went far beyond the basics. It made me smarter about my money. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I bought this book in the hope it would shed some light on the problems with Quicken for Mac 2001. Quicken charges for almost all phone support - which is usually answered by people who are not knowledgable. So - I was looking forward to the book filing the gap.

WRONG! It is a primer at best - albeit a long winded one. It doesn't even tell you have to back up and restore files! I found this particularly astounding since our financial files and knowing how to back up properly is so important.

I almost don't think the woman who wrote this exists - the book is that useless and just a shill by Intuit.

thank goodness Amazon makes returns so easy. I'll just hit the help button on the mac - that is when Quicken figures out how to make help work.

Sue Churchill's Australian Bats looks at all aspects of these cute and not so cute creatures. She does address some common misconceptions and myths about the animals, as well as going into detail about their habitat, their physiology and their diet.

Definitely recommended for bat-fans, of the flying, not detective, variety.

a woman and a man plots to kill the husband in the triangle. but the body disappears. and there's a mysterious call. what is going on? they no longer know. as always, D has a sort of weird plot development. but it was fun to read from the sympathetic killers' point of view. one of his weakest accomplishments, but still agood read

Does the book worth its money? Probably not, but if you can get it at a reasonable price, the cd can be quite useful for choosing creative and effective treatment plans for your clients. The cdrom is tailored to be used for CBT techniques.

I'm a Bypasser and wanted to know if my progress was similar to others. This book let me see that much has not changed in the 15 years since Change of Heart was written. The patients experience and complaints with doctors seems to be the same as today. The fact that women are under represented also hasn't changed and encourages me to write about the Bypass experience from the perspective of women and get their opinions, needs and feelings out there too. Doctors need to read this book. Too bad it's out of print. Check your library. Good reading.

The Cult of the Atom is a frightening look at the inner workings of the Atomic Energy Commission, and it's successor, the Department of Energy. Very well researched, the author takes us on a journey of special interests, accidents, incidents, and the growing pains of a multi-zillion dollar industry. If evver you wondered about which side of the nuclear reactor debate to be on, this book will absolutely convince you. And if you wondered if Big Bu$ine$$ holds sway over government, this book provides ample insight. An economical addition to your favorite nukeheads' shelf!

The West, alarmed by reports of the MiG-25's technological prowess, scheme to nab a copy of the super-plane for themselves. The Foxbat is a big and ugly airplane, one that Western intel (both those in real life as well as in this book) h already dismissed as less-than wonderful. (Previous reports of the jet's technological formidability were shot down when the west got a close look at a MiG-25 flown by a defecting pilot to Japan.)

In "Foxbat" the novel, the west changes its mind again due to reports of a new variant. With better electronics, and more high-powered engines, this Foxbat is primed to become the Soviets' primary platform for anti-satellite weaponry. "Foxbat" tells of the efforts to recruit, then blackmail an elite fighter pilot into defecting with his wonder fighter. The novel is an interesting piece of 1970's cold-war frisson - there are no good guys or causes. (It's cynicism for its own sake, and it hurts the book also - are compelling stories an ideal that we've grown past demanding?) The "hero" of the story is the feckless and luckless Foxbat pilot who's dragooned into defecting, and then must survive when the Yankees get cold feet and decide that they want the plan quashed. The characters are pretty thin, and the writing style won't stick on you like Craig Thomas does. Unfortunately, "Foxbat" invites comparisons with the superior "Firefox". The story doesn't focus enough on the Russian pilot's efforts to get out of Russia with his plane, nor on the rough merits of the plane itself.

This was an interesting idea for a novel - one that wasn't necessarily made obsolete by the premise of "Firefox", just that book's superior execution. Still it's worth a read for that alone. Just don't expect something as memorable.

"The Gold Bat" is not a series of distinct stories but actually a short novel centering around sports. It might best be compared to today's teen high school novels; save of course in Wodehouse's fictional boys school of Wrykyn, derived directly from Dulwich, his own public (private) college (school), there are no teen pregnancies, so 'de riguer' in today's overheated publishing world. Nor drug overdoses, mass-shootings, nor sad tragic coming of age deaths in automobile accidents - cars not having been invented when he began attending Dulwich in 1894.

Perhaps out of some prescient awareness of future literary competition in this niche market Wodehouse offers his readers, instead of today's overt teen realism (and moralizing), an evil and dark 'League', right out of the Conan Doyle serials then appearing for the first time in the young Wodehouse's favorite reading material, "The Strand Magazine". This once banished League, broken up and its memebers expelled after locking a boy overnight in freezing bathwater with the result the child nearly died of pneumonia, suddenly re-emerges in sinister fashion, with several rooms being trashed and calling cards claiming the 'League' responsible. This sort of crypto-terrorism challenges the tenacity of Team Captain Trevor in a serious of ups and downs culminating in Wodehouse's variation on a French duel: a secret AM boxing bout between the ringleader of the newly revised League and star pugilist O'Hara, Trevor's friend and the novel's token wild young Irishman, who, among many 'shenanigans', tars and feathers the statue of a local virulently anti-Irish politican.

Written as a serial for "The Captain", a magazine catering to public school boys, the book is well summed up in Robert McCrum's must-own Wodehouse biography;

"The plot turns on a crime - the theft of a gold replica bat. However, the pleasure for modern readers comes not so much from the story, which is effiecently handled, but in the light authentic picture of public school life and the hints of the prose to come."

Although the general level of prose fails to achieve much in the way of the memorable, even at this very beginning of his career, Wodehouse was barely twenty, the author manages the miraculous feat of discussing his beloved school with little trace of maudlin sentimentality. Moreover, his chapters already are breaking down into unique moments of singular comic mold, with such things as furtive ferret-raising, exploding chimnies, and a college prank erupting into an Irish rights riot in the city park.

And there ARE moments of the authentic Wodehouse touch peeping through breaks in the prosaic clouds. Take this depiction of a Mathematics classroom, where the goal of the student O'Hara is to be kicked out so he can meet with his friend outside in the hall. Notice how subtly Wodehouse slips into the language of Scientific Reasoning, while deftly introducing terms of Geometry into his narrative.

"In one corner of the room stood a gigantic globe. The problem - how did it get into the room? - was one that had exercised the minds of many generations of Wrykinians. It was much too big to have come through the door. Some thought that the block had been built round it, others that it had been placed in the room in infancy, and had since grown. To refer the question to Mr. Morgan would, in six cases out of ten, mean instant departure from the room. But to make the event certain, it was necessary to grasp the globe firmly and spin it round on its axis. That always proved successful. Mr. Morgan would dash down from his dais, address the offender in spirited terms, and give him his marching orders at once and without further trouble."

Too, Wodehouse already paints characters with insouciant ease. Here he gets back at a petty tyrant prefect he must have despised in life,

"The prefects are the criterion. If you find them joining in the general "rags", and even starting private ones on their own account, then you may safely say that it is time the master of the house retired from the business, and took to chicken-farming. And that was the state of things in Dexter's. It was the most lawless of houses. Mr. Dexter belonged to a type of master almost unknown at a public house - the usher type...When Dexter's (house) won the final for the cricket cup in the summer term of two years back, the match lasted four afternoons - four solid afternoons of glorious, up and down cricket. Mr. Dexter did not see a single ball of that match bowled. He was prowling in sequestered lanes and broken down barns out of bounds on the off-chance that he might catch some member of his house smoking there. As if the whole of house...were not on the field watching!"

Although the book has been pooh-poohed as slight it shows a fine ear for dialogue, and an easy way with character - just so long as it need not be very developed. Readers curious about the essence of life at such an institution, and we're talking the 1890's here, will find the book's details and color a gold mine.

There are, however, some serious caveats. Unfortunately for Americans, much of the central story-line focuses on rugby, the game, not the school of the same name. Which makes for tough and often perplexing sledding. Those of you who never butt heads on a rugby team will probably find it all too 'for the home market only'. Cricket, an even more baffling business for the uninitiated, and which gives its name to the title, also figures freely in the boy's ongoing chatter.

Wodehouse does know of what he writes; no slouch as an athelete, he made his Rugby fifteen AND the Cricket eleven, the English public school counterparts to starting on the American High School football AND baseball varsities! Wodehouse does a fine job as a sportswriter, and includes many of the elements of the most hackneyed 'big game'; the star play who pulls up with a twisted ankle just days before the match, a lsst minute score against the traditonal rival - it's all there. Yet despite Wodehouse's crisp expostion it does get pretty confusing to follow, especially so for most Americans who 'haven't the foggiest' as Wodehouse's later famous creation, Bertie Wooster would put it. (Indeed, it's astonishing discovering the creator of the cowardly Bertie, who can barely ride a bike in a straight line, and views an eleven A.M. wake-up call as tantamount to news his building's on fire, is the same sports-obsessed writer ex-jock who churned out such a paean to the virtues of pre-dawn gym workouts and the punishing glories of pugilism in "The Gold Bat"!)

This reasonably priced edition of "The Gold Bat" offers no glossary, which really is a necessity for American readers. "The Gold Bat" may be too slight to deserve such an addendum, but could certainly have gained considerably by its addition. Contrast this to such efforts as taken by the English publishers on the behalf of their British readers of American Robert Coover's fantasy baseball novel "The Universal Baseball Association Inc". Coover was allowed to add not only a short two-page Glossary Summary but in addition a full sixteen page alphabetical glossary of baseball terms. But then, in 1968 Hart Davis took its publishing more seriously than today's paperback knockoffs.

Yet even a reader equipped with a sports glossary to ward off blindsidings by rugby or cricket chatter still faces yet another stumbling block: a bewildering and confusing hierarchy of school terminology also must be mastered. I found myself going back several times trying to figure out just what was what.

In the end fans of P.G. Wodehouse may find all this just too much to wade through, but if you do understand rugby and/or are familiar with English public schools I certainly recommend the book.

Not all Wodehouse juvenalia can be skipped with impunity. Don't miss "Love Among the Chickens: written just a year after the "Gold Bat" and featuring the incredible Ukridge, Wodehouse's first great comic creation!

In this Grandma Sal and Grandma Nan story, Pip's baseball coach is sick and if the team does not find a new coach, they will not be able to play in the big game on Saturday! Grandma Nan overhears Pip talking on the phone with his best friend, Ski about the big game.
"I can coach!" states Grandma Nan.
"I can too!" says Grandma Sal.
Both grandmas will coach together they decide. At practice, the grandmas are how they usually are. Grandma Nan is too strict, but Grandma Sal is too laid back. The Stings, Pip's team, are all bothered by the grandma's arguments and ways of coaching.
At the big game, the Stings are losing and Pip tells the grandmas that they need to play on their own, without the help of coaches. The Stings continue to lose and Grandma Nan and Grandma Sal agree that they must do something to help the team.
I can't tell you what they do, for that will give away the ending, but it is silly, like always! I love the grandma stories! They are so fun. I would recommend this story to beginners at reading. It is easy to comprehend, but definitely not boring.

I used this with storytimes and the story was too involved for the preschoolers in a group setting. May work better one-on-one or for older children