Whips Books

This book was ordered, because of the author is highly qualified in the ornamental knot arena. I am very pleased with the directions and illustrative drawings. A further good reference came from The Magazine of the International Guild of Knot Tyers, Issue 96, September 2007, giving it a glowing report in their Book Review section.

I read this book and it`s very good! I tried to do whips and home and they are very pretty :)
I took a good results.

Eugene Solomin
Russia

Great book, well written and very easy to follow. Ron makes things so easy to follow that even the really hard stuff makes sense right off the bat. If you can't make a good quality whip after reading and following this book, give it up you never will be able to.

Nice book have not used it to make a whip yet. Some things are not quite as clear as I would like to see. Better to have someone show you than read a book.

I must say I did find this book fascinating and the information contained in it provided an overview of the entire process of whipmaking form skiving a core to to plaiting the overlay. However, If your looking for a step by step, ultra-specific instruction manual, taking you completely thru the process of making a whip from scratch, this book still is not quite it!!! Don't get me wrong, there is alot of great information, and this is certainly THE Published book to get that comes closest to an instruction manual, but I feel, if your an absolute beginner, you're still not quite going to be able to knock out a COMPLETE whip from scratch after reading this book. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I was looking for when I got this book.

For instance, whenever Mr. Edwards talks about anything to do with the "set"(the overlay plait) he is very specific. But he quickly glances over other parts of the whip that are equally as important(i.e. he never fully explains exactly how to correctly taper and shape cores or bellies for certain whips which is going to be devastating to the overall whip taper if you don't have it right). The section right in the beginning explaining the different types of Leather and Hides was also lacking. And I know he's an Australian, but he spends WAY to much time emphasizing Stockwhips and barely anytime on the most popular American whip, the Bullwhip(you will DEFINITELY NOT be able to make a proper bullwhip after reading this book).
If you really want an INSTRUCTION MANUAL guiding you specifically thru every single step in making a Bullwhip, then go to www.dukewhips.com and buy Rob Duke's Bullwhip Making Instruction Guide.
I really did enjoy Mr. Edwards book. As I said there are a number of extremely vital techniques explained that are invaluable to the whipmaking process. I just wish it would have pulled the entire whipmaking process together more coherently.

I am sure Homer's Whip is located someplace around here as the stories are similar to what our parents have told us over the years. We read one story aloud after dinner on most evenings and enjoy a family laugh together. We are getting near the end of the book and want more. Will the authors be writing more stories? I sure hope so. I am a social worker and family time is so important. I would like to recommend this book to many of the families I work with. This is a great book for the whole family to enjoy together. Terri, St. Francis, Kansas

There should be a warning on the cover---"This book should not be read while consuming hot liquids". I ruined a new shirt. Even the names cracked me up.

These are the only stories I've ever read that manage to be sly and corny at the same time and get away with it! They seem really odd at first (well, and they are!) but then you start smiling in anticipation, waiting to see what outrageous trick Christians will pull next. "Homer's Whip" is a great antidote to pretentiousness and doom-crying.

I am not a short story fan but Christians book may have made me one. He takes you into the culture and life of a village community and allows you to see it from the inside. In each story there is chuckle or a downright laugh. It appears as if the shortness of the stories would make it easy to put the book down and come back to it later. That isn't the case-you just want to keep on reading. It is also a book devoid of anger and violence. A great summer read!

This is Book #5 of the Wagon's West Series and just as good as the previous ones.

This one deals with the war between Texas and Mexico as well as how Texas becomes a state.

A lot of our favorite characters are back and in this one Danny Taylor and Chet Harris are not only forced to make choices that will affect their lives but they also grow up rather quickly. The Blake's as well as Ginny are again in this one.

Maybe it's because it's the first non-Oregon Trail book in the series, but Texas just does not have the "oomph" of most of the other books. The major characters of the series so far take a backseat to lesser characters in this book, breaking away much of the familiarity with the series. It is still a good book, especially if you want a novel set during the Mexican-American war. However, don't lose any sleep if you are trying to read the entire series and can't find this one in your library.

I am the proud owner of the entire Wagons West Series (all 24 novels). I began reading them in high school some 19 years ago. I have just recently begun re-reading the series and it's like visiting old friends. Texas, picks up two years after the settling of Oregon and we find the United States in the process of annexing Texas into the Union. Soon old characters like Whip Holt and Lee Blake are back in the saddle doing what they do best, helping our country expand, with selfless dedication. We are introduced to new friends who display the same attributes of the earlier settlers in the Oregon series. Overall, the book is quite enjoyable, and it is almost imposssible to put down. The reader is transported to the old West, and can develop a sense of pride and understanding for those brave men and women who were the trailblazers of our American history.

Dana Fuller Ross' novels of America's great expansion into the western territories is some of the most intelligent, well written and well researched historic fiction I have read. "Texas" is Book 5 in a series of 24 novels which truly bring history to life in a panoramic saga of one of the United States' most important and fascinating periods.

By 1844 the pioneers who forged the Oregon Trail were well established in Oregon Territory. Various wagon trains had followed their lead and the American population in the Pacific Northwest began to grow at an amazing rate. The new settlers' farms, ranches, offices, boatyards, orchards and lumber mills were thriving. Men like the aging former President Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas, future US President James K. Polk, Majority Leader of the US Senate, Andrew Johnson and President John Tyler planned to fulfill America's "manifest destiny" - the belief that America had a God-given right, or destiny, to expand the country's borders from "sea to shining sea." Their priorities were to settle the Oregon boundary dispute with Great Britain and admit Texas to the Union.

Rallying to the cause of Texas liberty from Mexico, volunteers from Oregon left their homes and joined the Texas Rangers, built the Texas navy, consented to repeat their arduous journey across the American continent and traveled east to lead wagon trains of new settlers to Texas. The United States sent wagon loads of rifles, guns and ammunition to assist the Texans, and finally the new state of Texas joined the Union as the nation's 28th state. The Mexican American War, which followed, culminated in US victory. The Texas boundary was set at the Rio Grande, and the US also bought New Mexico Province and what was called Upper California from the Mexicans. And the US/Oregon border with Great Britain was finally established at the 49th parallel.

Many of the characters from the first four books appear in "Texas" and new ones, both historical and fictitious, are introduced. Colonel Leland Blake and his wife Cathy leave their home in Oregon temporarily when they are given charge of the huge new wagon train to Texas. Danny Taylor and Chet Harris, who were adolescents on the Oregon Trail, both volunteer for the Texas Rangers to fight under their idol Captain Rick Miller. Harry Canning, another Oregon veteran, goes to Texas to put his boat building skills to use. The author gives these characters tremendous depth and illustrates how settling in the new land, along with new responsibilities, changes them and effects their relationships and lives.

The history, characters, plot and subplots in "Texas" are some of the most exciting and dynamic in the series. I love history, and while I have read and studied this period in America's development, I have learned so much from reading the first five Wagons West" books. I plan to continue until I read them all. A wonderful reading experience.
JANA

First up, Martin Caidin is a prolific author with solid credentials (over 80 books published, including Cyborg - which was turned into "The Six Million Dollar Man" TV series). More lately, he's been writing techno-thrillers of one sort or another. "Whip" was one of his earlier novels, written after "The Last Dogfight", another outstanding Pacific WW2 airwar novel. He's got quite a gripping style of writing, very good at describing the planes, the flying, the conditions and in building a picture of the main character(s) that's believable. He's not an outstandingly great novelist, but he's an excellent craftsman and any book he wrote is going to at least be well-written.

"Whip" is better than well-written, it's a minor classic of it's kind. "Whip" Russel is a Captain in the US Army Air Force in 1942, commanding a squadron (the 335th Bombardment Squadron) of eleven B25 Mitchell bombers. His squadron are the elite, tasked with "special" missions against the japanese. The novel starts of with their arrival in northern Australia for refitting, paints some historical background for a couple of the main characters and then returns to the air war as the squadron launches a series of missions against the Japanese in Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck Sea.

The 335th was apparantly based on a real US bomber squadron from the war, the scene-setting is very realistic, partilcularly if you know anything about conditions in Papua New Guinea and the fighting that went on there between the Aussies and the Japs. Great descriptions of the bombing raids and of the flying, as well as the conditions of the bush airstrips that they flew from. All in all it's a book that you'll enjoy if you like well-written and soundly-crafted novels of the air war in the Pacific in WW2. There's not many that are better than this one.

If you like read exciting, action-packed, suspense filled books, you will just love Whip. It is an awesome read for anyone looking to reveal the mysteries of what goes on within airplanes and crews in aerial combat. It will make you think about a lot of things while leaving you craving the next page.
I love to read war related books. I have never flown in an airplane before, and this book made me feel like a pilot. It fills you with detailed descriptions and on-the-edge-of-your-seat scenes. It makes you question and think about your life- how fast it could end and how you live it. Everyone wants to life their life to the fullest and Whip further pushed me to that urge.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys an older book that will still leave you breathless with the mysteries of aerial war-fare.

WHIP is Whip Russel, the hero of this excellent WW2 novel. He
is an unforgettable character - real hellraiser and fearless
bomber pilot who takes huge risks in confronting the Japanese.
The Americans are trying to stop the Japanese advance in the
South Seas and they construct a secret base from which to launch
attacks. There is drama between Whip and his old friend, Lou
Goodman, and Japanese military characters are portrayed as well.
Martin Caidin authored over 80 books, both fiction and non-fiction, on military, space and science fiction subjects and was a pilot himself so he knows the subject matter expertly.
It is hard to put this book down - I loved it.

This book gave me a better appreciation for what my ancestors endured when the American forces began their pacification of the "gugus". Even though it came from an American soldier's perspective, it demonstrated the will of the Pilipinos who used whatever they could use--captured weapons, even the treacherous terrain--to fight for their homeland. It seemed that even though the soldier writing the memoirs looked down upon the natives, he also somehow respected them as a formidable opponent.

This book was written by a young enlisted man who idealistically joined the Army to fight for the honor and glory of his country. Instead he discovered how hungry he could get (except when they accidently broke open the officer rations while crossing a river--the work detail ate very well that day since they couldn't let the broken cases rot!) This author speaks in the words of the day, so "political correctness" is not an issue. He refers to the native Filipinos using the "n" word, and demonstrates an awareness that the popular notion of them being a lazy, unworthy opponent weren't necessarily true. The book is short, and reads very fast since it is so entertaining. This is the type of first person account that historians love as it puts faces on the dry facts that fill so many other history books.

This was the first Catherine Cookson book I've read. It was also the saddest. It seemed that bad things just kept on happening to her, although the book did have a good ending. It sure took a long time for her to find happiness. Catherine Cookson is my favorite author because her stories are so realistic and almost everyone of her books I've read so far have made me cry.

...in this typical Catherine Cookson page-turner. The orphaned Emma is brought to live with her reluctant grandmother on a country farm. Life is hard. Emma endures very hard work, the abuse of her employers, and suspicion of her Spanish background.

Emma's great beauty and strenth of personality cause some men to love her and some men to hate and want to punish her for seeing through them. Circumstances force her to accept marriage from a decent enought young farmer Barney but her life is harsh, and she must endure the hatred of her brutal brother-in-law Luke, who eventually punishes both Emma and Barney in a particularly horrific fashion.

Emma must also bear the heartache her selfish, promiscuous daughter brings to the family, but she remains a good woman, working herself to exhaustion on the farm when her husband becomes disabled, and refusing to become bitter. I wish Emma had been allowed to use her Whip in a more dramatic, rescuing fashion, like Ayla and her slingshot in Clan of the Cave Bear, but it tends to serve more as a symbol in this novel.

Emma's relentless hard times depressed me more than usual, I don't think the other Cookson heroines suffer quite this much, except maybe Katie Mullholland or Tilly Trotter.

In any event, this is another superb Catherine Cookson I'd highly recommend.

Excellent! The only word to describe it. The book is very well presented and also well written. A MUST for every home with such simple and easy to prepare recipies. I would recommend this book to everyone and really worth its price in gold!

Despite a tragically short life, Les Savage left a rich Western literary legacy of finely crafted novels and short stories. Savage's work was characterized by historical accuracy, memorable characters and evocative descriptions of the old West. This Leisure Books volume, which brings together three of Savage's novellas, amply illustrates Savage's talents.

Interestingly enough the lead characters in all three of these novellas are larger than life. "Whip Master" boasts a heroine who is as hard-nosed romantically as she is deadly with a whip. "Secret of the Santiago," which involves the search for an Indian treasure trove of gold, features a tempestuous, free-spirited female rancher who can draw a hogleg with lighting speed. "Trail of the Silver Saddle's" lead character is a Pinkerton detective who could give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.

Though some might consider those characters a bit gimmicky, Savage's craftsmanship makes them living, breathing human beings. His plots are interesting and well-developed and he has a marvelous way with words in describing western vistas.

Fans looking for quality western stories need look no further!

****
Thanks Leisure Books for resurrecting the works of such a gifted writer!

We are all addicted to pleasure in many different forms; why is it that so many of us are addicted to pain? I don't mean pain of loneliness, or pain of heartbreak, or existential pain - I mean the unmetaphoric physical pain of the whip that has been used for centuries as a sacrament, a salutary, or a stimulant. The love of the whip is too strange for simple answers, and scholar Niklaus Largier knows it. He has performed a huge amount of research into many arcane areas to produce _In Praise of the Whip: A Cultural History of Arousal_ (Zone Books; translation from the German by Graham Harman), a big tour-de-force that examines the many aspects of flagellation. Largier has had to treat many erotic aspects of the subject, and his generous quotations from such pornographic classics as _My Secret Life_ and reproductions of illustrations from Sade's _Justine_ are titillating, but that is certainly not the tone of the work. For one thing, it is as objective and academic as a book on this subject could possibly be, although with the many quotations from centuries of works, it is also entertaining. For another thing, Largier has not restricted the history to sexual flagellation. His subject is voluntary whipping (he does not cover punitive whipping), and almost half of his book has to do with religious flagellation, although there is a risk of overlap into the erotic whenever voluntary whipping is adopted even within the church.

I am not into flagellation myself (well, he would say that, wouldn't he?), but if I were, I'd take the sexual kind. The religious kind is just too kinky. A medieval manuscript describes the practices of Dominican nuns at the turn of the fourteenth century, detailing blows from various instruments; despite the title of this book, such tools as birch or thorn branches, nettles, rods, or chains are all mentioned, as well as leather whips with or without knots or sharp metal thongs at the working end. The manuscript says that the nuns whipped and drew blood "... so that the sound of the blows of the whip rang through the entire convent and rose more sweetly than any other melody to the ears of the Lord." The various reasons for doing such a thing were to impress and intimidate the devil, to imitate what Christ went through, to scourge a sinful body to promote the soul, and also to redeem the world from plague. In the fourteenth century, traveling flagellants combined whipping with song and dance numbers, making their own sort of liturgy and services. The church proper rejoiced in its holy men who practiced asceticism, but it fretted that the popular flagellants were becoming an alternative church, and authorities began to legislate the practice out of existence. But Enlightenment thinkers incorporated whipping into their anti-Catholic writings, and it was easy to concentrate on the female sinner who got an absolving administration of the birch from her confessor, or the monk who enjoyed fundamental discipline administered by a pretty nun. In other words, misbehavior by religious people became a staple of pornography, and whipping was a particular part of sexual activity that was emphasized in pornographic stories. Whipping was also promoted for medical reasons, but no matter the medical seriousness of such discussions, the texts tended to get republished and supplemented with "case studies" that Largier says, "enriched their subject with gratuitous erotic details."

Largier's book is written in a serious and academic tone; if you didn't know what a "praxis" was before, you will get examples of the use of this word many times in each chapter. The language is entirely consistent with the academic studiousness throughout the book, but the subject is one that at times cannot but excite laughter and wonder. Indeed, Largier remarks on the work of a 1698 medical treatise, that it shows that the "stimulation of flagellation consists instead in the fact that it is part of the variety of the world in all its richness." That's a perfect reason for an academic treatise on this far-from-trivial topic, and Largier's comprehensive book disperses plenty of such stimulation.

This is a very well written, interesting, and informative book about SM. The author is extremely articulate and discusses SM philosophy in addition to providing useful how-to information and history. There are also beautiful passages by various SM practitioners describing their experiences. I've read many SM books, fiction and nonfiction, and this is definitely one of the best. Note: This books is written from the point of view of a gay male; if that's a problem for you look elsewhere (although, too bad for you - this book is great).