Adam Books

If you are looking for some insight into the process of writing a nonfiction book, you need AUTHOR 101 BESTSELLING NONFICTION. Rick Frishman and Robyn Freedman Spizman have tapped into their own experiences with nonfiction books but also interviewed leading nonfiction bestselling authors and added their voices to this well-done volume.

As someone who has written more than 60 nonfiction books with traditional publishers,I resonated with each section of this book. Whether you are getting started, doing research to see if you have a market for your idea or trying to get organized, you will find valuable information. They don't whitewash the experience but tell would-be writers the straight story. For example on page 43, they say, "Writing a book isn't easy. Having wonderful ideas and wanting to share or display your knowledge may simply not be enough to get you past the hurdles you will face. And the process can be demoralizing because at every juncture, people may criticize or diminish what you've written or plan to write." Then these authors point the way through these potential difficulties.

It's a great volume to add to your how-to write list of books. I highly recommend it.

I would give this book more than 5 stars if I could. I am a big fan of all the Author 101 books but particularaly liked the section in this book where they interviewed many successful authors who shared their "habits of writing". I found out that many successful writers write like I do! I also found out some good ideas for writing expecially with organization.

The Good:
Nice inside looks at the figure skating world, and Russia, which was cool.
Good mystery, a couple of nice twists, cold war intrigue, & skating politics.

The Bad:
I would get tired pretty quickly of the emphasis on ice skating, but they appear to only be one a year, so I could deal with that.

The Verdict:
It's apparently the 3rd in the series--I'll have to check out the earlier ones.

In 1977 Moscow, fourteen years old Russian figure skating superstar Igor Marchenko defects to America. A few years later, he wins the only American gold figure skating medal at the 1982 Winter Olympics. After he retired Igor became a coach, but never returned to his homeland until now at forty-two years old, as coach of the 2005 U.S. Ladies' Silver Medalist, Jordan Ares competing in the "U.S. vs. Russia: A Figure Skating Challenge" event.

On the first day of practice in Moscow Igor collapses and dies in the Natzionalnaya Arena. 24/7 Sports Network researcher Rebecca "Bex" Levy agrees with officials MURDER ON ICE occurred. The evidence points towards Igor's long time American rival Gary Gold, coach of Jordan's prime U.S. challenger Lian Reilly. However, Bex thinks that is hometown judging so she makes inquiries of the Russian skating team and the facility management and staff. As Bex skates closer to the truth, she finds herself ON THIN ICE from an unknown assailant.

The third Bex Levy figure skating cozy is a terrific tale that highlights the changes since the late 1970s between Russian and American relations subtly displayed by two New York Times headlines (in the novel that is): 1977's "Defection" and 2005's "Murder". The first showcases the glee and despair of the Cold War adversaries while the second represents the western media's present ability to investigate what happened to Igor. As the evidence piles up making Gary the golden suspect, only Bex has doubts as she looks at who else would have motive; anyone in the facility had means and opportunity. Fans will score Alina Adams with 9s and 10s for her superb figure skating murder mystery.

Harriet Klausner

Any student of early Spanish history or Aztec history must take a look at AZTECS & CONQUISTADORES: THE SPANISH INVASION & THE COLLAPSE OF THE AZTEC EMPIRE, which surveys the impact the Spanish conquests had on world history. The focus here is upon the military might of Cortes, the training and experience of men on both sides of the conflict, and the major battles that subdued the Aztecs. Color maps, illustrations and charts throughout enhance the survey and provide exact explanations and insights suitable for both high school and college level history students.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Well written with excellent pictorial information. And one who has done any kind of research into this period of history and was curious about how things actually looked would be very interested in seeing good detailed and written descriptions of maps, battle suits, weaponry and other items of the period. A good overview of the events during this period in Mexico's history, but the book is more valuable as a visual insight. Would highly recommend this as an ideal companion book to read with a more detailed historical book of this period in history, such as Bernal Diaz del Castillo's book of the conquest or William H. Prescott's wonderfully written History of the Conquest of Mexico.

I had to read a lot of Carson's books for school. I enjoyed reading this history in particular. Everything is clearly spelled out, understandable, and makes perfect sense. Carson's tells the history that you won't find in most history books, which is very welcome.

By the late 1970s, conservative historian Clarence B. Carson was known as the author of several volumes on American intellectual, political and economic history, including *The Fateful Turn*, which chronicled America's abandonment of individualism in favour of collectivism in the years 1880-1960 and *The War on the Poor*, an examination of the disastrous effects of government programs to "help the poor".

But Carson felt that a much longer work was needed to fulfil his intellectual mission: a complete history of the United States that would correct the errors and distorsions of those available on the market. For Carson was very dissatisfied with the existing histories of the U.S.. As he wrote in The Review of the News in December 1982: "For years I have cursed the darkness, so to speak, as I have examined and reviewed history book after history book. On rare occasions, I would examine one with rising expectations as I made my way through the early part of the text... But, from the Civil War onward, even the best of them tend to go downhill into the miasma of leaden accounts of industrialization, mass production, the class struggle, the magnification of the alleged injustices of the American system, until by the time they reach the New Deal, they read as if they were written by press agents of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Indeed, some have been".

What he wanted was to avoid the biases of "Marxists, socialists, anti-Americans, skeptics, humanists, and many, many others with axes to grind", by committing himself to telling "as faithful an account as I could make it of what had actually taken place."

This effort was to have been published by a private foundation, Western Goals, whose purpose was "to build and strengthen the political, economic and social structure of the United States and Western Civilization so as to make any merger with totalitarians impossible". But Carson's supporter in the foundation, U.S. Congressman Larry Mc Donald, was killed before the first volume had even been published: in an ironic twist of history, he died on board the Korean airliner that was shot down by the Soviets in 1983, along with 268 other innocent civilians.

Undaunted, Carson the academic turned into a businessman, creating the American Textbook Committee, and went on to publish the rest of his work independently, relying mostly on word of mouth and the eventual promotion of his writings by conservative or libertarian bookclubs.

The resulting history of the United States is definitely my favorite. While most modern historians assume that what the Founders created was a "democracy" which protected "civil rights", and that their efforts were finally crowned by the establishment of the welfare state in the last century, Carson does understand that the United States are a constitutional federated republic based on the classical doctrine of individual rights.

For this reason, among many others, as Carson hoped it would, *Basic American History* succeeds in "arousing anew that sense of mission and purpose which brought these United States into being".

'The Bay of Love and Sorrows' is one of the best books--if not THE best--I've ever read.

Most books tend to be draggy at the start. This is an exception. It sucks you in from the beginning. It sucks you in and makes you feel like you're an observer, watching everything that's going on as the author describes it. You get outraged, you get saddened, you feel relief,...you feel everything as you read through this; and as you get further and further along, you don't want to stop reading.

The characters are human. No one is saintly, everyone has their faults and strengths. The actions and scenery are described very well--sometimes in a few words, sometimes in many words.

More importantly, though, it makes you think about how justice is doled out sometimes--how sometimes those who have nothing to do with what has happened end up suffering before those involved get their just desserts. It also makes you think about how some people will believe anything anyone tells them, without having the audacity and the know-how to question everything.

A definite must-read.

If you've not read any of David Adams Richards' books, you're missing a wonderful experience. Richards is master of the sublime, even when covering gritty topics and plotlines. Such as it is in this title; the characters are imperfect, flawed, some of them disturbed, outcast. This story is a tangled web woven, entrapping the souls it skirts, unravelling their lives as the situation(s) gain momentum. There are truly haunting moments experienced as one absorbs the tale. Although the reader will have affinity with the characters' very human flaws, Richards never allows us to get too close and I believe he does that deliberately; this fiction takes an in-depth look at the shallowness of living on the edge and the waste that it is.

The story will pull you in gently and carry you along with ease - the writing is so good you don't notice it... you simply absorb the story and its characters.

I've been keeping my eyes open for more of this writer's works (I started with his latest "Mercy Among the Children") as he has quickly become one of my fave writers. This is an excellent starter into the rich and dense world of David Adams Richards. Enjoy.

BEAUTIFUL DISASTER is the third and final book in the FAST GIRLS, HOT BOYS series. It picks up where the second book in the series, BLING ADDICTION, left off. It follows the lives of the "fabulous" five students at Miami Academy for Creative and Performing Arts in the last few months of their high school career. The fabulous five being Vanity St. John, Max Biaggi, Jr., Pippa Keith, Dante Medina, and Christina Perez. But only four out of the five of them will make it to graduation day alive. The question is who?

Max has a hard time when his sister, Sho, ends up in a coma after taking some drugs that somebody made at one of Max's infamous parties. Pippa blackmails Max's father for almost raping her on his private jet and decides to take off to New York without finishing high school. Christina jumps off of a roof, hoping to kill herself to escape the fact that her mother is sending her to some camp that is supposed to specialize in "degayification" only to get caught up in some Christmas lights and saved by a random guy who happened to be nearby. Dante ends up leading the police to a room where Vanity is tied up and about to be killed by some druggie who made a sex tape of her a while back. And after Dante saves Vanity they start a relationship together.

Right before their graduation day one of them is killed. And their lives are all changed forever.

I haven't read the first two books in this series but this one was great. I finished it in a day -- it was that good. It was also a short book as well, so that helped, too. But it was amazing. It moved at such a fast pace and was a real page-turner. I loved the five main characters, especially Max. They were all great and each of the story lines involving them were strong. This book is definitely intended for older readers ages 16 and up. It's a great summer read, so if you're without something to read during summer I would highly suggest this series. The first two books are probably just as great as this one is!

Reviewed by: Breanna F.

I loved this book so much! It is a real amazing book. I couldn't stop reading this book. I got so excited or nervous in certain parts of the book. I loved the book from start to finish. I was so surprised when i got to the end of the book. I hope that i could get to read the whole entire series so i could really get something to start with! I recommend this book to everyone because you could really learn a lesson from it!

The original Beethoven study in this series dates back to 1899. However in 1934, Dent Music Masters replaced that early volume with an entirely new study by Marion M. Scott. This particular edition enjoyed great popularity and was reprinted nine times between 1934 and 1974. Scott (1877-1953), an English music critic, musicologist, violinist and composer, untook a completely new study of Beethoven's life and work. Her insightful comments on his music are based on her own interpretations and careful study of each score. She visited Beethoven's birthplace and immersed herself in his world. The result is an extraordinary classic study of the man and his music. Scott was a metaphysician who probed deeply into the spirital aspects of Beethoven's music and created a text that is both stimulating and profound. "Beethoven's last quartets are not the justification of modern music," Scott observes, "but modern music has reached the point at which it justifies the quartets and proves Beethoven's genius to have been transcendental." Highly recommended.

...But it has.

A superb book on Beethoven and a neglected classic. Small in size but not in scope, it less delves into his life and work with hardly a wasted word. Short but very insightful discussions of the character and occasional shortcomings in his compositions, with very level-headed and perceptive opinions (and a more positive reception of the composer's Late Period than I would have thought from a work of that time). The discussion is not watered down, but never gets over the head of the average listener. Many pieces are quickly dealt with, but the writing is direct, the insights sharp, the points well-taken. What's most impressive is how Scott has advanced many a theory I've rarely heard since, but which make such good sense. One wonders why she wasn't take more seriously, her insights not more frequently cited by others in their works. (Was it because she was a woman in a man's world?) She speculates, for example, that the "central three" of the last five Beethoven quartets were likely culled from aborted attempts to write masses; this not only describes their spiritual quality" better than the modern cliche about how they initiated "the avant garde," but it also explains Beethoven's famous cyptic note to his publisher about Op. 131: pilfered together from this and that. If indeed much of the material came from the three masses that comment would be justified. Furthermore, she claims the last quartet, Op. 135, short as it was, would have been even shorter because it was originally intended to be only three movements. But while many critics believed the slow movement to be the added section, she doubts this because that would have meant every movement in the quartet was in F Major. Rather she posits that the scherzo is actually the extraneous movement, and even claims it does little to advance the quartet. We've been so blinded by its bold audacity that we've failed to see that this is quite true. If you doublt me, try playing the work without the scherzo: in some ways it's even more interesting.

I'm surprised this book isn't better-known today, and has not recently been reprinted. I got more out of this slim volume than out of many biographies or analyses that go on for 500 pages or more. Worth looking for. Highly, highly recommended.

Benedict developed his methods of leading during the time Rome was falling apart around 450 A.D.

His approach reflects a structured system of what worked within a community/business. It is a simple, honest, easy to understand method for leading an organization. It is also an easy read.

It is thought that over 40,000 organizations have used this approach over the last 1500 years. It has passed the test of time.

Don't mistake this for a religious book. The monks were more independent entrepreneurial businessmen than elements of the church. It is clearly a book about leadership that provides the essense of what it takes to be successful.

The method can be used as a model and is as applicable today as it was 1500 years ago.

Fantastic little book on Leadership. Examines the world's oldest management system, and why it has been so successful. Great applications to the modern corporation. Perfect book for those tired of military analogies for business, or "tough-guy" leadership. Neat ideas on corporate rituals, ethical foundations, employee formation, and how to build a cohesive work group. If more modern corporations followed these "rules", we would have fewer scandals and higher profits. An easy read.

My wife is very happy with it, because she can play Bryan Adams songs to my kid, who loves Bryan Adams songs

I just bought this book and i am impressed. The music is aranged wonderfully and it's very easy to play. If you're like me and just want to sit down at the piano and play then this is a perfect book for you. Bryan Adams is known for his smooth love songs and rocking fast songs. perfect mix.

The Wild Thornberrys by Adam Beechen

The part that I like was the animals. I like the beavers the most. I also liked the adventures and characters. The characters are
Eliza, Debby, Donny, Maryanne/Mom, and Nigil/Dad. This is a really long book and movie. It teaches you a lot about animals. This is a really good book. You should read it

I love this book's happy ending. Through a clever plot featuring some adorable beavers, Eliza and the reader discover together how important family is, and how Valentine's Day can extend to include children as well as parents. The poem at the end would warm any woman's heart!