Adams Books

Third-grader Eddie Lewis and the other students at Riverside Elementary School are eagerly preparing for October 10th, when "a real author" will be visiting the school. Eddie likes to both read and write. His teacher encourages him by saying, "We are all authors with important stories inside us." Each child has prepared a question for the author. Eddie's question is: "How do you write books that have parts meant for me?" But during the author's presentation, Eddie doesn't get a chance to ask his question. The author sees him afterward and makes a special effort to talk with him and give him a chance to pose his question in person. Eddie is awed by the experience, and he intends to write about it.

While the identity of "The Author" is kept anonymous throughout the text -- a technique that lends even *more* mystique to the specialness of her appearance -- this book is obviously an autobiographical story for Borden and is based on her own school visits. The narration is told in such a way that the reader's anticipation builds just like it would if we were looking forward to meeting a celebrity ourselves. We've all been there. Even adults become nervous and tongue-tied when faced with speaking to someone they admire and respect. Thus does this book transcend audience level. We can *all* relate to Eddie's situation.

Adam Gustavson's realistic paintings add greatly to the story. They convey freeze-frames of realistic emotion from every character, especially of Eddie and The Author.

This title is certainly useful for preparing elementary students for author visits. Secondarily, it's highly recommended for aspiring writers of *any* age who seek advice from "a real author."

Another fabulous book illustrated by one of todays top childrens book artists. Can't wait to see his next book !

Since the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese government in 1997, the former British colony seems to be slowly slipping out of the world's attention. In Mr. Fenby's look at the year 1999 as Hong Kong lived it, we see not only why we need to watch Hong Kong closely, but we realize what stakes China is playing with as it slowly comes to terms with theis quasi-democratic city and its place in the world.

Mr. Fenby writes the book as essentially a journalist's diary that spans the entire course of 1999 - the final year that Mr. Fenby was editor of the South China Morning Post, arguably the premiere English-language newspaper in Hong Kong. He details not only the key figures in Hong Kong politics and the economy - at a very personal level - but also how China deals with Hong Kong and how the events of 1999 (everything from Falun Gong to the Taliban) shaped China's responses.

I think Mr. Fenby sees 1999 as not only the year that China stopped observing Hong Kong and began acting, but also the year that many of the fundamental agreememnts laid down between China and Hong Kong got tested. He shows the slow erosion of judicial and political autonomy caused, not through outright repression, but by behind-the-scenes deal-making and a desire of the political powers-that-be in Hong Kong not to ruffle mainland feathers.

His book is eminently readable and in many parts reads more like a political thriller than a diary or a report. If there is one criticism with the book, it is that when Mr. Fenby loses his job at the South China Morning Post in July of 1999, his personal hurt comes out quite clearly in the course of the narrative and possibly influences his objectivity throughout the rest of the year. However, were it me, I think that I would be hard-pressed to maintain even Mr. Fenby's level of detachment.

All in all, the book is not only fascinating and illuminating, but it is also quite enjoyable. I found myself caught up in the power play between China and Hong Kong as if it were a first-rate novel. However, the book is not a novel, and it does contain some rather chilling messages for the future of Hong Kong. If you have any interest in China - or interest in China's relationship with the Western world - I recommend not missing this book.

I read Mr Fenby's book on a plane ride from Rio to Hong Kong. It was the perfect antidote to spending hours on a plane. The first part of the book is a compendium of facts, views and background on Hong Kong particularly as they relate to the handover to China. So by the time I got to London I was an expert on the fascinating topic. I then started on the diary section where Jonathan picks out news items and events during his last year in Hong Kong. Now I was an expert on the "Handover" I could laugh at all his wonderful one-liners. (Such as his final sentence on a piece describing some particularly errant behaviour by the authorities in Hong Kong: "One country, three systems"). He also contrasts, with devastating effect, the ideological flag waving for the "love of motherland" with almost daily reports of corruption in China. A wonderful book that will educate and amuse in equal doses.

So I was disinclined to read it for a long time. I thought it would be a book of interest for only women. I was completely wrong. I won this book at a book fair years ago. It is not one I would have puchased on my own. I picked it up soon found myself reading it avidly. It is Abigail Adams' complete life story. A faithful, constant, patriotic wife for the cranky but brillant John Adams. Every bit her husband's intellectual equal, she was his most important advisor throughout his public life. She kept the family together during his long absences first in Philadelphia during the revolution & later in Europe. During these periods apart, once, over seven years, she raised the family, saw to the education of their children (Harvard for the boys) & ran the family finances quite well. All the time she was corresponding with John & we have many of her letters to him & others. After the war she spent several years with him in Europe. Although she was always loathe to leave her beloved New England, she knew she had to be with her husband to understand what he was trying to do, that is helping to build a nation. Her observations on the years spent in Paris & London are valuable social history. As mush as she was a revolutionary during the war, in her later years she turned into an uncompromising reactionary, unwilling to change & adapt to the evolution that she had fought to create. She became what she had fought against. Most of his career John Adams was unpopular & underappreiciated. This fact bothered Abigail all her life, more that it did John. How could anyone compete with George Washington, even if you were smarter than him? Eventually in her old age she mellowed. This was in part due to the sucessful career of her one of her sons John Quincy. She could be described as a earily feminist for sure. But for all her self taught political savvy, family always came first. Yes, there were Founding Mothers & she was. I fear very few people have read this book or will ever read this review. However, for the first person who reads it & gives me a positive vote I will send my copy, free, if you will read it, p&h included.

My book club read this several years ago. We went on the read John Adams, 1776, B. Franklin, etc. DEAREST FRIEND was the best of them all. I was as engaged and interested on the last page as I was on the first.
If you are enjoying the HBO John Adams read this book next.

This is the textbook that my SciFi class uses. The stories in this book are exciting and riviting and want you to keep reading. The stories make you feel how the characters felt and you feel like you know them. It keeps you guessing so you never want to put it down. OUr teacher is excellent and helps us to analyze the stories to find hidden meanings and to better understand what is going on. I reccommend this book to anyone in a science fiction class or interested in scifi at all.

I am the author of this book. It was originally written as a textbook for college and high school classes, but should be interesting to anyone who wants to explore the history of science fiction. It includes 27 stories, starting with Jules Verne, and continues up to 1996 with Jody Lynne Nye. It has a historical timeline for each decade, and an introduction to each chapter (decade) which summarizes the political, scientific, and literary events which were then prominent. There is also an introduction to each author and story, and a series of questions at the end. There is also a bibliography. I wanted to include a list of other SF works, including movies, but that got moved to the instructor's manual, along with the answers to the questions. I hope you decide to try the book and email me your comments, or add them to amazon's online section

This is still the only really great book on overhead reconnaissance, and I have been surprised and disappointed to see it overlooked by the mainstream intelligence academics. Contains useful early history on why we got into technical collection (our human spies kept getting killed on arrival as we took the easy route of recruiting from émigré organizations already penetrated by the KGB and GRU). Ends with a passing reference to commercial imagery, a topic that merits its own book.

Simply the definitive book on US intelligence-gathering from air-vehicles, space-borne platforms and sub-surface systems. Burroughs work is thorough and informative. Though now dated by more than a decade's worth of technological improvements, the basics of intelligence and counter-intelligence systems are well-covered here. The sections on aircraft (RC-135, U-2, TR-1, A-12, SR-71) and satellites are simply fascinating.

GREAT photo section in the middle of the book, with pictures of the Russians' Black Com 2 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier under construction (KH-11 pic), a nice pic of an SR-71 in flight, an F-15 launching an ASAT weapon (30,000mph terminal speed!) and much more.

It's a shame this book is out-of-print. It would be nice to see a limited production run, perhaps a new edition. Mr. Burroughs, how about "Deep Black 2, The Next Generation"?

I have been fortunate enough to collect several hardcover editions of this book, including "like new" copies. I prefer the larger hardcover, but I miss my paperback copy which has disappeared. These are becoming collector's items, so if you find a decent copy at a good price, grab it!!! (I have several excellent copies in my collection!!!)

Deep in the Woods was a joy to read to with my child, her face was all smiles as we turned the pages of this joyful book..I highly recommend it as a great addition to your family library.

The book is wonderful for children learning to count. The illustrations make you feel like you are part of the story. I would highly recommend it to any parent!! It will surely be your child's favorite book!

This book is really two books in one. A VXML tutorial and an overview of all the technologies used to build voice applications. The authors, in the overview portions, have presented detailed information yet have made it manageable enough to allow the reader to gain a good hold of the material without getting lost in the detail. Where the book really stands out though is in the VXML tutorial. The tutorial is written in a layered fashion in which the basic concepts are presented before moving on to the next more advanced feature. At each step an example is used to help make the concepts concrete. I loved the fact that the authors never underestimate the my intelligence nor did they seek to impress the me with their advanced knowledge. I was very happy to find this in a recently published technical book. I was able to move quickly though the tutorial building on the example presented. I bought the book hoping to come up to speed on new voice application technologies having been out of that field for many years. The book has done that and I consider it one of my better tech book buys.

I seldom write reviews for books on Amazon, but I just had to do it for this excellent book. This book is by far the best resource for building enterprise caliber voice applications. I have purchased 5 other VXML books and none of them delivers the information that this book does. This book not only delivered the content I needed, but it's comprehensive and deals with complex issues in a simplified fashion. The real highlights of this book are Chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 4 explains Enterprise applications, possible architectures for dealing with state, and interacting with a backend. Chapter 5 deals with more of a deployment and physical architectural angle. Get it for those two chapters alone.

The only thing that I found missing was techniques for versioning a voice application (No not the CVS source-code control type versioning). I mean having the same backend server provide different content to the same voice browser and techniques on structuring your application to smoothly transition from one set of content to another. For example, the voice browser cache is full of old static content - how can I gracefully switch to new content without forcing a dump of the existing cache through the HTTP headers or some other external mechanism - It has to do with using relative pathing beneath the application root document for vxml scripts and static content. Some information about Browser to Browser interactions might also be nice - but I recognize the VBI specs are just emerging.

Anyway, anyone thinking of building a real voice application with speech recognition and integration to backend applications and data should definitely add this book to their library. It has helped me tremendously. Two thumbs up!

There was no one like Adam Hammer before he lived and there's been no one like him since he died. This book should be buttressed by the rest of his admittedly thin but indispensable oeuvre--go ahead and google them . . . I was privileged to know him "como un hermano" from 1972 to 1974. He kept going for ten years afterward, and Karenlee Clarke Alexander and I believed ourselves immensely honored to be called his "elderliest friends." Lately, I was delighted to find a Virginia Quarterly Review capsule review of an anthology called "Dark Horses" quoting a few lines from one of his poems (selected by Jim Daniels). Oddly, but certainly on target, a few verses from an overlooked poem by Emily Dickinson immediately follows those Hammeresque lines. Once walking by the Dickinson house, we imagined what somone might do should the silhouette of her wraith appear in the upstairs window . . . Knock on the door? Write something else entitled "Call'd back"? . . . Adam always remembered to acknowledge those poets--Bill Knott, Jim Tate, Tom Lux, Joe Newman, John Love--who first inspired him to ride the winged horse. His own work as well as his (undoubtedly more difficult to find) opinions should be better known.

THIS BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE!!!!!11 IT WAS SO TOTALLY TRIPPY MAN, THAT I DIDN'T READ NETHING ELSE FOR LIKE A WEEK! I LOVE YOU, ADAM HAMMER!!

This is a great manual for the person just opening a business, and a
good guide for those of us already in business. Many good tips on mark-up
and profit margins. And bidding on prevailing wage and union work.

I found this is a very good book for plumbing trade. Practical advice with lots of worksheets and estimating forms and checklists (including bidding instructions). Overall I will highly recommend for people who have some plumbing experience. Perhaps the best I've seen in this specialty field.

Having read excerpts of "Shooting Jelly With A Shotgun" online, I was looking forward to some more of Adam Maxwells highly original short stories and I was not disappointed.

Quite where he gets his inspiration is likely to forever remain a mystery, but this is the most imaginative blast of dark humour to appear this year.

Standouts are the truly bizarre "Jim Morrison's Leg" and the delightfully inventive "The Holy Face Of Gary Barlow" but there is not a weak story in the entire collection.

Highly recommended and I hope Adams next collection will not be too long in coming.

AlanF

Adam Maxwell is a master wordsmith, but not the kind you're used to. He knows how to say what needs to be said using carefully crafted diction and witty, purposeful language. In this age of daunting 1000-page Pulitzer winners and laboriously dense texts from faux-academics (see also: elitists), Maxwell's collection is a shotgun blast of fresh air. These short (and sometimes short-short) stories are gems of neo-noir style balanced perfectly with classic humor conventions and contemporary storytelling. A real summer treat, and can be read -- like any great story collection -- over and again. High recommended from this reviewer. It may be flash fiction, but the joy in reading Maxwell will surely resonate long after the pages are turned. [...]