Allen Books

I adored reading the Harry Potter books, but I always wished I could hear them read in the appropriate British accent. Jim Dale is not only an excellent reader of the books, he creates remarkable voices for each character. His readings have given me new insight into the books. I recommend purchasing any of the audio CDs of the Harry Potter books, as read by Jim Dale.

After the brilliant Prisoner of Azkaban expectations were running very high.
Fortunately, Rowling delivers yet again.
Another book that was almost impossible to put down.
Azkaban was shorter, but this one is really long.
Its length didn't deter anyone from reading through it in record time, including me.
Adding even more drama and action and a story line that was simply amazing, Goblet of Fire succeeds on every level.
Goblet adds a more mature theme to the series as the characters get older, which adds even further depth to the series.
Another winner from Rowling and another must have/must read.
Recommended!!!

Title: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Author: J.K. Rowling
Date: July 8, 2000
Publisher: Scholastic press
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
# of Pages: 734
Genre: Fiction

In this fourth edition the main character Harry Potter is now 14 years old. Of course, Harry is still that same boy from book one with the lightning bolt scar, only now he is slightly older and he begins to understand the challenges that face him ahead. It seems like just another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry until the Tri-Wizard Tournament is announced and Harry is mysteriously entered into the tournament as a contestant. The Tri-Wizard Tournament is a magical competition that tests the contestant's bravery, knowledge, and magical skill. Along with the tournament readers are introduced to two other magical schools (Durmstrang and Beauxbatons) and get a rare glimpse of the wizarding world during the Quidditch World Cup. Again, Rowling combines her vivid details of the wizarding world to paint an amazing picture that allows the reader to revel in even the smallest details that make Harry Potter so special. Along with the death-defying Tri-Wizard Tournament, Harry must now focus on the return of Lord Voldamort and his death eaters. Once again, Rowling also introduces a few new characters into the story, both good and evil. A new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor arrives at Hogwarts and some problems are created by house-elves throughout the story. The positive about this book is that they first third of the book spent reviewing the previous three Harry Potter books, so even if you have not read them you can start at book four and have a good idea of what is happening. Also, many points of the plot are left open leaving room for book five.
There really is not a negative to this book. Honestly, after reading the first three books I was leery that Rowling was not going to be able to continue writing such engaging stories, but once again she proves that she is able to keep the magic alive. Rowling does an excellent job of reintroducing the main characters and keeping her faithful readers engaged.
Personally, this is my favorite book from the popular series. Rowling is able to take this story to a new level by creating a slightly darker version of the popular series and allowing the main characters to experience challenges unseen in the previous books. Goblet of Fire is the first time that a main character actually dies at the hands of Lord Voldamort, the main villain within the series. This is also when Harry Potter, the main character, begins to develop into a young adult and begin to take on the responsibility as the main rival of Voldamort. Overall, this story marks a turn in the Harry Potter books that expresses a more "adult" tone to the story.

I've been reading the "Harry Potter" series sense Gr. 2. The first was ok, the second was mildly intertaining and the third took a giant step in making the series understanding. But the forth is far by the funniest and most clever of the series. I like it how the author (J. K. Rowling) squeezes more information from book to book. It's very understandable and fast to read. If your a fast reader you can probably get to Chapter 3 in about 2hrs. This book is "AR" (Acellarated Reading) and is fun to read. It is worth 32 Points (Awesome). As other books you search for big points this series can take you up far. My friends and I read the "Harry Potter" series and love the films. I heard the other books like books 5-7 have more than fifty Points (I almost threw up it was so high!). I reccomend these books for people who like long stories that make some sense in each book.

Triwizard Tournment ,Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasly.

Harry potter has a horrible life under the commands of the Dursleys. He wants to get to Hogwarts, a wizard and witchcraft school, one of the three, Beaxubutions and Durmstrang. This year the Triwizard Tournment is happening at Hogwarts it hasn't happened in over one-hundred years.

The champions are Viktor Krum, one of the worlds greatest seekers, Cedric Diggory, a fellow hogwarts, Fluer Delacour, a Beaxbutions student, and Harry Potter, himself! The problem is Harry did not put his name into the goblet of fire. He is too young. Who put his name in the goblet of fire?

Draco Malfoy and his gang of Slytherins have badges that say "Vote For Cedric Diggory, The Real Hogwarts Champion". If you press it into your stomach, it says "POTTER STINKS".

The first task is easy for Harry it gets harder and harder until the final task.

I would recommend this book to readers who like fantasy and magic. By Zoe

I was a pack a day smoker for 20 years, compulsively it was probably the most important thing to my sanity. I use to quit every other month and make everyone nuts, until Carl's book helped me break the brainwashing. Just remember you can never convince yourself to have just one. Non smokers don't occasionally pick up a smoke for any reason.

I am so happy for all of the people who read this book and find success. I knew that quitting smoking was not going to be easy, but after reading this book and other reviews, I thought I wouldn't have much problem handling it. I have been reading it again. This is NOT easy (for me). I think his book is wonderful because he understands the addiction and is not preachy, he's like a supportive friend. I will say he has given me a new perspective, and I think that many people can benefit from this but do not go into it thinking it's not going to take some work.

I have been a 2 1/2 pack a day smoker and have smoked for over 40 years. My son gave me this book and I was quite suspicious of another "easy method to quit smoking". However, it has now been a month without a cigarette or even much of a desire for one. Whenever I feel the least urge to smoke, I just thank God for taking that feeling away from me and immediately I am grateful that I am a non-smoker. Who would have thought??? If you have been unsuccessful in the past or have the least ambition to stop smoking, please read this book. I think you will be happy that you did! I AM SO DELIGHTED TO BE A NON-SMOKER...

I tried many methods to stop smoking--cutting down, nicotine replacement, hypnotism, an on-line stop smoking program, and several convolutions and combinations of my own device. Nothing worked until this book. And even with the book--the first time I read it, I quit just for a day, and then was right back to smoking! But, I knew the book was right, and a couple of weeks later, I got back with it (didn't even have to re-read the book), and quit for good. I had forgotten how good it feels to NOT smoke. Each breath of air refreshes me, I am much more active, I don't stink, my teeth and mouth are clean, and my woman is all over me.

So--what's in the book?

You get a convincing rebuttal of every reason you can think of to smoke a cigarette--even one more cigarette.

You come to understand the subtle but powerful brainwashing that is associated with nicotine addiction.

You get a good deal of information on the nature of nicotine addiction, why nicotine replacement therapy (gums and patches) are so ineffective, and why the physical addiction is not nearly so hard to overcome as the psychological addiction (the triggers that make you want to smoke). And you get a lot of help in dealing with those triggers.

It's still not easy to quit; for me, dealing with my "triggers" was quite a job, and there were many times in my workday when I would get stressed by a work conundrum and want to reach for a smoke, as I had been doing for years. But I learned to deal with it, and am a better person for it. This book has helped me beyond stopping smoking. It has helped me to deal with stress in general.

This book is a life-changer. Best money I have invested on anything in my lifetime.

I used to smoke a pack a day for 10 years. I tried using every single method available before this book to quit smoking. It has been a month since I finished this book and I haven't had a single craving for a cigarette!! Allen Carr is completely right when he says that life will be more enjoyable once you quit. I still enjoy all the activities I used to (eating, smoking....etc) without the need for a smoke.

I am no longer counting my cigarettes to see if I have enough for the night. I do not have the feeling of fear that used to course through me when I was out of cigarettes. It is true that cigarettes really do control you and I am glad to say that I am FREE!!

I personally know 14 people in my life who have successfully quit by reading this book. I don't know 14 people who have quit smoking using all combined available methods. That speaks volumes about this book's ability to truly cleanse your mind of the brainwashing and free your body from the disgusting poisons that we used to pollute them with.

THANK YOU ALLEN!!!

Its more 77 principles with its proper exercises. Gives you a down to earth overview on the matter. Not a magic book but will tell you that to improve the comunication and talk openly is not the final answer. Its been helpful to me, for my marriage and for my job as a therapist.(obviouly not a couples therapist).

Gottman is a Genius when it comes to male/female relationships. I would suggest that anyone even thinking about getting married read this with their significant other first!

Okay. So I feel that anyone who stops to think about life and peoples reaction and who takes the motto do until others what you would like others to do for you or treat others like you would like to be treated is pretty much set wthin the principles that make up 75% of this book. The other 25% I considered to be food for thought, nothing more. This book didn't offer me any significant insight though it did offer me some peace of mind.

I really enjoyed this book. It gave me a lot of insight and calmed my fears about relationships over 45.

This book is definitely interesting and the author obviously made a good research, but those exercises after each chapter are a little tricky when it comes to doing them with your partner. If you don't have a good communication between each other then it can be challenging and actually make you fight while doing exercises. So if you are reading this book to improve your marriage that's in trouble already, you might want to read the book by yourself, not involving your partner and involve him only in the end (do all the exercises) if you think you are ready. The author also warns you before the first exercise to answer questions straight and not comment on any of them, for example: Your husband asks you a question "what do you think excites me?" , answer directly what do you think excites him, don't say "Well, we don't have any sex so how should I know" or something like that. It's a recommended book.

I bought this book as an additional material to study for the CISA exam. However it didn't help me with the exam at all. Furthermore, in an attempt to cover many things, it did not cover anything in detail. This book is just an endless recollection of bullet points. On top of that, it misses very sensitive topics like disaster recovery planning.

Not having much experience in the IT audit field, this book was a great resource and was easy to understand.

This book has some material relevant to the CISA examination based on the 2003 content areas, although it is not organized or focused as a CISA examination guide. If you are looking for CISA review material for the test, I would strongly suggest to stick with ISACA's combination of review manual and questions CD. I also searched everywhere for study aids for this grueling test and ended up using ISACA's expensive material, but it proved to be the best choice as I passed the Dec 2006 test.

However, as owner of a copy of this book, I assure you that this is an excellent reference of IT management, planning, implementation, risk assessment and control procedures for anyone in the IT business. Most of the material is still relevant as of 2007.

Audit is not the most exciting topic in the world, but this no fluff book really sets the standard. The care the authors took is obvious from the start, the table of contents is one of the most detailed I have ever seen, it allows the book to be used as a reference.

My favorite chapter was Quality Management, best job of making quality approachable I have seen to date. My least favorite was Project Management, it seemed to lack the application and lean to theory a bit.

I am not an auditor, but as an auditee, this book really helped me understand how they think. Recommended!

This is a huge book but spends no more then 1 page on any topic. In my opinion the authors only have financial audit experience and little understanding of IT controls. This book shows the failure of the 'integrated auditor' as the authors are tyring to be IT auditors with little IT experience. They touch on some very good points in a few instances and, in general, the book is decent. The authors do not know much outside of the CISA, IIA and financial based certifications as they seem to think that the ISSA (Information Systems Security Assoc.) is sponsored by ISC2/CISSP's (it is not). Overall, I have not been impressed with this book.

Firstly a warning, this is the second edition and covers Windows 2003. There is a third edition that covers the newer OS. I bought this book by mistake and it's too big (postage would be too expensive) to return. So buy with care.

This is a big book in terms of pages but the content is less than stellar. Don't expect to find too much on designing AD in real world situations such as integration with networking topologies and devices. Nor expect to find details on integrating AD with other Microsoft technology such as SharePoint. No this cookbook is really an administrator companion, and I think it does a pretty decent job in that but not more.

Very handy cookbook reference for my office bookshelf. I've used it a number of times, and it's more than paid for itself in expediting regularly-scheduled inquiries of our AD structure here at GEICO HQ.

Excellent reference if you work with AD on a regular basis either as an admin or a developer. Each "how to" offers methods for manually performing a specific task as well as (where possible) how to automate the task using code. Should be on every Windows admin/developer's desk.

Overall, this is a great book for reference.

There are a number of areas where I think the book falls short - all of the scripts are very hard coded scripts that don't tell you how to do some functions that would make their scripts actually useful (like "pull the list of users with attributes from a tab-delimited file and create them" or something similar, this would make mass creation of users actually useful, instead of "create user1, user2, user3, etc..."). I think that the writers expect you to be a VB expert (or at least close to it) if you're going to actually make the vb scripts useful.

Most of the scripts are "How to use a script to do the same functions that you can already do in AD with ADUC or another MMC", but I think that the most important thing for me about the book is what it inspires me to think of doing. Things that MS doesn't necessarily expect you to do. I'm still not seeing a way to add sidHistory to an object (MS does it with another applet - there is a way...), but there are so many things in the book that just have me thinking about how you can implement changes to an environment that MS says you can't do. What they really mean is "You can't do that with the GUI tools that we provide you".

I am so glad that this book was recommended to me by a guy I took a class on scripting from. I use this book everyday (almost). I even took it on vacation with me for light reading.

I've read several of the Seth books. I much prefer them to the Abraham material. I love this book, over the years reading the Seth material I have also come to love Seth. Reading the seth books is one of the few experiences that I can say truly altered the course of my life. I am forever changed, and for the better, thank-you Seth and Jane.

I am reading this book again for the 3rd time. When you lst read it the concepts seem simple but they are complicated and require much thought. Seth whoever/whatever he is, I think was clever to make it seem simple as to not stop anyone from reading it but below these concepts are very important things about being human. I just wish that Jane had thought to perpare a wookbook to go with it. Or that someone steeped in the Seth knowledge would create one. It would be very useful to use alongside while reading this book.It is too bad that there is an "entity" thing involved because so many people will never accept this on those terms. Teens could also use the teachings/explanations of reality during those turbulent times of growing up. I am surprised that many people have never heard of Jane Roberts. Such a shame--but again, it's the "entity" factor that keeps people from this extremely important explanation of how we as humans believe our way to success for failure (or both at times) in life. If you are ever in the "dark night of the soul" of your life--get this book. It will uplift you and open a door to let in the light. There are more people that read the Seth books than are willing to admit and that is ashame that this information isn't there. I even heard Oprah on the radio admit that she read Seth! But I don't see her admitting to it on her show. Now that really would get a lot of attention. I wish she would have done a Seth show rather than the stupid Secret!

For me, it's been a long and meandering path back to Seth's teachings. I first read "Seth Speaks" and "The Nature of Personal Reality" in the mid-70's. I had some trouble understanding them and really, wasn't yet able to "get" what he was saying. But I guess it planted the seed. I am now re-reading "Seth Speaks" with great delight and much greater understanding.

Go ahead and read metaphysical books by other authors, especially if this stuff is new to you. Then, when you have the basics, read Seth. His books are rich and dense with complex information that is not that difficult if you take your time with it. They are definitely worth the effort. And if you apply what you learn, your life will be much happier and richer.

Far from some oversimplification of how we create reality, Seth leads the reader, step by step, into the incredibly complex nature of the soul. I read and reread, probably only a few pages at a time, as the material is so spiritually stimulating yet thick with new information that it must be digested (at least for me) a little at a time. The authenticity of the material is indisputable making this (as well as all Seth books) an essential read for any sincere seeker.

This is one of those rare books that can literally change your life. Physically, it's just paper and ink, but the IDEAS it contains--

For anyone who has deep questions about oneself and the circumstances of one's life, this book is an astonishing eye-opener as well as a practical workbook. Highest recommendation.

This collection features the original Peanuts comics in its first 2 and 1/2 years. Not even the 1st Peanuts book includes all of the cartoons (I have the book and I don't remember it including the 1st cartoon where Shermy introduces Charlie Brown, sarcastically calling him "Good ol' Charlie Brown"). The 1st 5 characters included Charlie Brown (who started out naive and friendly), Patty (not Peppermint, she was just a cute girl with bobbed hair and a plaid dress and matching hairbow), Shermy (Charlie Brown's original buddy), Violet (known for her pigtails and mudpies) and Snoopy (who walked on all fours whose gags were more cute, not yet ingenious). The next year (1951) would mark the debut of Schroeder, who started out as a baby and later became a pint-sized musical genius with a passion for Beethoven (you can see the cartoon where Charlie Brown plants the seeds inside the future musical maestro's head). Violet and Patty would start out as friends to both Charlie Brown and Shermy. Also, Charlie Brown 1st models his trademarked shirt with the jagged stripe this year. 1952 marks the beginning of the Sunday strip (I believe it's the one they're all playing tag; the trademarked block letters had yet to be introduced). And of course, we see the debut of the Van Pelt family. First introduced is Lucy, a cute little girl (seriously) with saucerlike eyes (she'd later sport a fussbudget attitude)and later, her baby brother, Linus (at 1st, he'd fall down a lot in the strip and had yet to be known for his blanket and his philosophy on life). Classic cartoons include the debut (of course), Charlie Brown getting offended by a rumour of a crush on Patty, Violet reprimanding Snoopy for sitting in the birdbath, the gang playing tag, Lucy mistaking Charlie Brown's record collection for licorice candy and the 1st instance of Charlie Brown getting the football yanked away (1st from Violet, but Lucy would later take on the role eversince). If you're a collector of Peanuts, you'll want this collection!

These are the strips you seldom see reprinted and yet they say so much. The first two years of "Peanuts" introduces you not only to many of the key characters (who look somewhat different than they would in later years) but also to the usually gentle, yet occasionally sharp, humor of Charles M. Schulz, which was splendid from the start but would get even better as the years passed. As a bonus, you get to see Schroder and Linus as babies, and Lucy as a toddler. (In Schulz's comic-strip world, they would age, but only a little.) You see Charlie Brown before he wore his familiar shirt with the zig-zag design, and meet Snoopy when he seemed more dog than human. What's more, there is an excellent introduction by Garrison Keillor, a summary of Schulz's life by David Michaelis, who would go on to write the definitive Schulz biography, and a lengthy interview with the great cartoonist himself. Even the index is helpful in locating such all-important items as when the immortal phrase "Good grief!" was first uttered. A valuable collection indeed.

Prior to reading this book, I had only circumstantial knowledge of "Peanuts". I thought this could be a good way to get started on it, and I was right!

That sublime book is hardcover, has a dustjacket, 2 full years of strip-ness, an introduction before the strips, and an essay after them, and also an interview with Schulz.

The whole thing is top-notch. The essay provided enormous insight on what "Peanuts" represented in its context, its public importance, and on Schulz as a person. That essay even made me cry. I swear to God, you'll cry too. Behind Schulz's funny and cute world are some terrible pains and lifelong scars. Schulz was a full of self-doubts and low self-esteem, despite his tremendous success, and all the experience he gained from that shows through his work, and works cathartically by making those moments look fun and funny and outside of ourselves.

I was surprised by "Peanuts" because I did not expect it to be this profound, nor this funny. To be honest, I expected something much more naive and lame, but it was not!

This book is my absolute recommendation for anyone intending to get started on "Peanuts": it is classy, it has perfect paper quality, good intro, amazingly deep and touching essay on Schulz and "Peanuts" - which relates the tragedy of his mother and of his going to war, and his last days - and an interview of the man himself; the whole thing gives you the impression that there was something saintly about Charles M. Schulz, and indeed, I want him canonised.

I used to red peanuts when I was a kid and finally we have the complete colection in a nice edition...it is always good to see my childhood pals..charlie brown, snoopy. A good edition for collectors and fans of comic books

Penauts is very good with lots of jokes from the times of your gramma's expressing themselves of there feelings and find the old gang of ol Charlie Brown I consider those who like to buy there penauts collection at Amazon.com. Good luck!

This is an outstanding field guide, easy to use and understand.I live in the mountains of western North Carolina and many species of birds migrate through here and also there are many year round species that I have identified with this bird guide. I highly recommend this guide if your looking for a bird field guide that is easy to tote in the field for a quick reference for any unusual birds you may want info on readily.

Love my new Sibley Field Guide. It's better than the old standard guide I've used for years. It's easy to navigate, and I love the varied views of individual birds, flying, perched etc.. It stays on my kitchen table for constant reference!!

I owned this bird book before my purchase from Amazon. The two copies I recently purchased from Amazon were for gifts. The Shibley field guide is my favorite because it also includes the color configuration of the underside of the bird's wings which other authors don't include.

I love the Sibley guides. The one criticism that I have heard and will agree with is that some of the drawings are a bit "dull" in comparison to other guides. Having said that, this has never deterred from my ability to identify a bird in the field. I both watch and study birds and absolutely adore these guides. Everyone who I've spoken to agrees that these books are excellent. Probably the best feature to me is how each species is depicted in flight as well as percing. Arrows highlight key features to look for. Juvelniles and females depicted. Other unique characteristics noted or depicted (e.g. diagnostic flight patterns or other movements). Wonderful! (Western edition too).

My Uncle, G. Max White, gave my son a hand-crafted peanut butter feeder that he'd made and stained. He explained to his great-nephew, in specific detail, the kinds of birds he would start to see. We hung the feeder outside my son's window and within three days the birds started to arrive. My son was elated! We decided to add a birdseed feeder, a woodpecker feeder, a finch feeder, and a hummingbird feeder to his collection. We put a songbird clock on the wall next to his window so he could compare the birds he saw with it until we received the field guides we ordered from Amazon. He was in heaven!

We purchased the National Geographic guide and The Audubon Backyard guide, but THE SIBLEY FIELD GUIDE TO BIRDS of EASTERN NORTH AMERICA is by far the best. Everything about each bird is all on one page. The illustrations, "(more than 4200 total)" are smaller but plenty large enough to see each bird's features.

We are able to see the bird's appearance from juvenile to adult and breeding or non-breeding. We love the way we can look at the characteristics of the bird, the detailed descriptions and a map showing where the bird thrives all on the same page. It is informative and concise.

My son has discovered a vast array of birds in our area. He has been intrigued by their characteristics and songs. Uncle Max's love for birds and nature, and the spirit that has been passed on to my son through his artwork, lit the spark! My son's enthusiasm for bird watching has been fueled by referencing David Sibley's meticulous and inspiring work, THE SIBLEY FIELD GUIDE TO BIRDS OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. Together, G. Max White and David Sibley have encouraged my son's passion for birds; a love that will last a lifetime!

Now this is the book everyone should read.I loved it and have shared it with many friends and all the same LOVE it.It is such a healing book for anyone who has lost a loved one.I recommend it greatly.Its another one of those books you just can't put down.
Thanks

This book was very interesting. The author is aware that many skeptics are reading this book and doesn't try to convince the reader of anything. I found this book very helpful after the recent loss of two loved ones.

I read this book after the death of my brother. It brought my out of the darkness and back into the life that continued to move on around me. It is an enlightening book, even for those who have traveled far on the path.

After reading this book, I came to the conclusion that Rosemary Altea may be sincere, but she is greatly deceived. The bible clearly states to stay away from psychics or mediums. She supposedly channels a spirit called Gray Eagle.

These psychics get their ability to have partial knowledge about you and your present situation directly from demons. No human has the supernatural ability to know what is going to happen to you in the future or anything about you in your present condition if they have never met you before. And if they do seem to have some type of personal information about you that could only be supernaturally picked up, then that knowledge is being transmitted to them by demons or they deceive people by doing "cold or warm readings".

Cold readings are where they make an educated guess about something about you, buy picking up clues, by what you say or do, or your appearance or age. If you tell them the information is wrong, they use a number of ways to distract you, for example some will tell you that they are getting information from a "playful" spirit that tells them false things, etc..... warm readings are where they have microphones in the studio before their show and they listen in, as people talk to friends that have come with them about deceased friends or relatives, and then they pick those people in the audience that they listened in on and use that information to make those people and others think they are getting a message from a spirit.

The bible says "And the person who turns after mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and him off from his people." (Leviticus 20:6)

If you want to see some damage done by new age teachings and psychics, I suggest a book by Sharon Beekmann called "ENTICED BY THE LIGHT ". She trusted the "spirit guides" that promised her fulfillment. By the time she discovered their frightening, true identity, it was too late--they had taken control of her mind....tormenting her, attacking her sanity, and pushing her to the brink of suicide.

For awhile I was involved in the New Age teachings and a book that really opened my eyes was "THE LIGHT THAT WAS DARK' BY Warren Smith. It is excellent!!!!

This book was given to me by one of my customers following the death of my son. I went on to write, Blessings In The Mire, and had this title not been taken, it would likely have been the title to my book. Having read this, I was privy to multiple magical events, including a couple of Eagle sightings, and one very large and beautifully expressive Rose miracle. This book, and Ms. Altea are priceless additions to your reading library, especially if you've lost a loved one.

As a white man over sixty, growing up in the Northeast, I was sheltered from the realities of racism by my surroundings. "Colored people" were simply not socially acceptable, thats all.
When you go through this book you will cringe and shutter. What reason and why would white people do this. Not only lynch but torture and maim before they allowed the subject to die, and often for no reason - just because it was Saturday night and people needed something to do. Truly a wakeup call for white America to reflect on what we were and really how far have we come.

Buy this book !

Z

This an extraordinary book.

My father, who was a civil rights activist, wore a button for years that said, "I read banned books." When he died, we made a bookmark with his photo on it wearing that button. When I read Without Sanctuary I used that bookmark. Living here in New York City I often ride the trains, and I like to read during these trips. I decided to take the cover off this book because I was worried about children and anyone else who was not ready to see these photos getting a glimpse of them. But I've talked to my friends at work, and I've even given them peeks of this book because I want so much for people to know about the period of our national history during which lynching occurred. Few people can stand to look.

I once went to a workshop for learning how to undo the effects of racism, which was mostly for people of color. I asked the workshop leader, "What can we white folks do to end our own racism?" He answered, "Put your face into the buzz-saw of racism, and hold it there until you heal." I am still, many years later, trying to follow that suggestion, and buying this book was part of my journey as a white person in acknowledging the racist legacy I inherited growing up in the US. Without Sanctuary puts your face into the ways that white society tried to terrorize and silence a large number of US citizens.

My family immigrated from Lithuania and other countries in Eastern Europe around the turn of the 1900s. As Jewish immigrants, many of them felt that they had nothing to do with slavery, and they certainly had their own problems coming here. My grandfather participated in union organizing with other Jewish workers, and my father turned towards the problems of poverty and racism in our city during the 1960s until his recent death. But I still feel we as a white family benefit from centuries of free labor in the US. The hard fact is, that as white immigrants we bought into the racist system that supported a middle class, or at least the intellectual lifestyle. Today I work as a public school teacher in the housing projects of Brooklyn, but I own my own house and I enjoy a middle class income.

Without Sanctuary reveals and reminds of us of that period following emancipation when white citizens still stood to gain economically by the silence and passivity of African American communities. That period, more than any other period of our history, conditioned us, under heavy terror, to accept the separation caused by so many years of slavery. Without Sanctuary is one of my buzz-saws, and I cherish it. And although no one I know can stand to look at it with me (yet), it is a healing device, because without understanding there cannot be reconciliation. Without pain there cannot be recovery. We as a people must face and feel our own history so that we can move forward to a world without racism.

The question you need to ask yourself before buying this book is, "Am I ready to heal?"

Thank you, to the folks who put together Without Sanctuary.

There are other books of lynching photographs, including LYNCHING PHOTOGRAPHS by Apel and Smith, which I used for a class in African-American History. But, while the Apel and Smith book is more cost effective, it lacks the appeal and power of WITHOUT SANCTUARY. For a book that calls itself LYNCHING PHOTOGRAPHS, it was remarkably sparse on actual photographs and very high in narrative and artistic evaluation. That is not the case with this book. It is stunning, both inside and out. It is stimulating to the senses--incredibly stylistic and made with high quality materials, as well as filled with large and incredibly powerful visual images and powerful source material. It is a book that is very hard to read because of the heartwrenching images, but impossible to put down. I plan to use this book in my future classes.

It's not a pretty job, but someone had to make this book. This history, though despicable, should not be hidden any more than the Jewish Holocaust should be. Germans need(ed) to face their history and as a white person I can say American whites need to do so too.

One gropes for words -- and many adjectives such as "horrific", "vile", and "gruesome" spring to mind -- but ultimately words fall far short. Which is why this collection of 98 photographs of lynchings that occurred throughout the United States (not just the South) is so important. Many but not all were the product of racism. All reflect a mob inhumanity and cruelty that boggles the mind and rends the soul. Although not on the same massive scale as the Nazi treatment of the Jews, this nation's lynching history, as graphically documented in this book, is equally disturbing. (How does one "rank" such atrocities anyway?) And what makes this even more sickening was that so many of these executions were public spectacles, community functions that were commemorated and celebrated with post cards and other commercial ephemera and even mementos from the victims' bodies.

Although not cheap ($41.16 at Amazon), WITHOUT SANCTUARY should be in every general public library in the United States, and at some point before graduation from high school every student should somehow be exposed to it, alongside the standard pronouncements of our nation's high and noble ideals (the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, etc.).