Allen Books

I read this series 3 years ago and have wanted to read it again ever since. I would recommend this to anyone! She brings life to the characters on the page and you laugh and cry right along with them. Full of history, romance, everyday struggles, fueding families and more! Will I agree the 4th book isn't as good as the rest, I still loved the closure that she gave to each character. Definitely read all 4 books they are all worth it!

There are four books in this series. They are: A House Divided, To Make Men Free, Through the Perilous Fight, and One Nation Under God.
I would give each of the first three books 5 stars. The fourth book was not as good. The series could have ended after the first 3 books.

The book The Devin Wind is a great book written by Garry Disher. It is set in broom in the 1946's and is about 4 friends, Hart, Alice(who are brother and sister), Jamie and Mitsy,who go through a lot with World War 2 happening and Broom getting bombed, and with close ones getting killed. The book is mainly about frindship and two friends who fall in love, and they are both from a different cultural background. I would recomend this book to any one who likes a good book to read and enjoy reading a love story ,and with a great story line. when you start reading it you will just want to finish reading it.

I don't know why Gary Disher isn't well-known over here... his WYATT books are simply wonderful. This is required reading for Willeford, Westlake, and Thomas Perry fans. FALL OUT is the last book in the series... so start at the beginning with KICKBACK and you won't be sorry. I read all six books in the series in one stretch and was sad when it was over.

I just bought this for my 14 month old yesterday and already we're accomplished 'what does a cow say - moo' and what does a sheep say - baa baa.' Unlike many of the other vocabulary books for babies, this one only introduces a few words and pictures at a time.

The format is very baby friendly. It's a thick board book where each page has its own tab making it easy for the babies to turn the page (my daughter's favorite activity). The first page has pictures (everything's made of clay making the pictures really cute and friendly looking) of a gate, dog, tractor, sheep and lamb, each labelled and on its own so they're easy to identify. Then, on the oposite page is everything put together, so there's a nice hillside with the farmer and his dog while the tractor tows a cart of sheep. Then there are a few other bits in the picture to continue with identification.

The book is only 10 pages long, but introduces enough images to really get a child thinking and learning. It's a fun activity a parent and child can do together, which is rare. The last page has all of the vocabulary words from the book, so you can make that into a separate game.

Overall, it's a very nice, inviting book that I think both parents and children will enjoy. Everything Usbourne publishes is brilliant and the Look and Say series is no exception.

This has been one of my son's favorites since he got it (around his first birthday) and now, at 19 months, he still comes back to it again and again. The format of the book is simple: on the lefthand side of each page are pictures of 5 farm animals and things found on a farm, and on the righthand side are those same exact things placed in a farm scene -- so the child can identify them again. Each page (there are 5) has a big sturdy tab with a picture of one of the featured items (tractor, cow, scarecrow, hen, owl) so when the book is closed you can still see those pictures. The last page reviews all 25 pictures featured in the book.

Not only is this a great book to familiarize children with things found on a farm, but the pictures are REALLY COOL. All the characters (farmers, sheep, ducks, etc) are made out of Fimo (modeling clay), photographed, and placed in front of bright-colored backgrounds (fields, ponds, trees, etc). They are also somehow laminated so that they REALLY stand out. The book is a bit larger and sturdier than most other board books and holds up well to my son's rough play.

This is a very high quality board book and I would highly recommend it for any baby/toddler who likes to name and point to pictures.

The content of this book exceeded my expectations. Originally purchased to increase my knowledge of a couple of the rules of the road. This text provides so much more. History of the rules, including case citations and plenty of easy to understand examples. I find myself picking it up often to just read. Excellent in all respects.

Farwell's should be on every professional mariner's bookshelf. This book is the most in depth and thorough presentation on the nautical rules and how they are interpreted that anyone has ever assembled. Filled with references to legal cases and decisions that support the reasons behind each rule, Farwells's is used by admiralty lawyers everyday. The book also traces the history of each rule, and discusses the difference inland and COLREGS rules.

This book would not be recommended to a recreational boater who is looking to just learn the rules for a test. This is a thick, heavy reference that explores every nuance and detail of each rule. It is however, an excellent reference for any professional mariner who ever has command authority on board a vessel.

This book is a wonderful introduction to the more advanced ideas of control theory. But it is written with emphasis on classical control and transfer functions (which makes for a good introduction). The problem is that this book is no longer in print. However, the copyright has reverted back to the authors. And they have kindly decided to make the book available for free! Simply do a google search for "Feedback Control Theory", and you will find it.

Essential for anyone who deals with robust control (or wants to). And as noted elsewhere, google the title, you'll find it on the web for free.

This book is extremely good in organisation, information, description and method of photographing trees. Although some of the technical stuff may be outdated (per digital cameras which are not covered), the book strengthens your awareness and perception of how to "look" at trees.

It's truly ashame that this book is out-of-print.

Any photographer who is interested in capturing the true strength of a tree (or trees) on film should hunt down this informative guide for some serious tips and technique. Allen Rokach is a gifted photographer and his work is presented in color photographs throughout.

Well worth the effort to find it.

Wayne Sallee excels in a type of horror no one else seems to attempt, or at least execute so well. His characters are not generally bedeviled by supernatural forces or dogged by creatures from Hell. His characters are beat cops and students and clerks and wanderers of an Earth that is all too real. His monsters are mundane folk who drink and eat and fart like the rest of us, but who succumb to urges we'd best not think too much about.

I always look forward to new work by Wayne Sallee, which appear all too seldom and are consumed all too quickly in a reading frenzy. This newest book was no exception, with each piece delivering a point of view that is uniquely Wayne Allen Sallee with no influence I can pinpoint and a voice that's wonderfully original.

When it comes to horror fiction, you can't do any better than this.

I've been a fan of Wayne Allen Salle's work for too many decades! He takes you places in Chicago's back streets, crappy apartments, el stations, bridges and lonely spots where you would never want to be in life, yet gives you the urge to stay, look, cringe and learn! The darkness is Chicago, the terror is in the mind and heart. This is an excellent collection that brings old memories back to life and helps create some new ones! I highly recommend it for old fans and for those who never heard of the son of a bitch! You'll love it.

If you've read the first four volumes of the Penguin Modern Classic, Proust's In Search of Lost Time, then don't let the publication restriction in the US stop you from buying the British text versions. Except for minor presentation, they are exactly the same that will be published in the US when the copyrights expire. The only differences (which are hardly a great obstacle to the enjoyment of reading the novel), are the footnotes in back and the original French lyrics which Proust occasionally quotes from in the body of the work -- apparently the British assume we colonial philistines do not know as much French as they do.

The introduction to The Fugitive I found hugely welcome -- British translator Carol Clark is unapologetically direct in summing up for us what the previous 4 volumes have been about -- a long wished for insight as I have been dying to know up to this point whether or not I have been truly getting Proust all along.

The curse and the blessing is that Proust died before he could give the final sign off on these manuscripts before publication. A curse because he most certainly would have removed or resolved many errors, and extended or rewritten many parts which are its weakest sections. A blessing in that, to be sure, there are in this and the next volume several obvious errors which a good copy editor would have detected and eliminated, but with time have become such a part of Proustian lore that they can no more be removed than say Jimmy Durante's nose shortened or Richard Burton's pockmarks removed or Marilyn Manson's makeup wiped clean.

And if one has lasted this long, the addiction to Proust's peregrinations from the plot to discuss seemingly unrelated topics and issues in minute detail - as seen from the other end of binoculars, as Roger Shattuck writes in Proust's Binoculars- one will not be at all bothered about any perceived sloppiness in these last two volumes. On the contrary, one will feel proud to detect them for oneself, and have a private chuckle about it as Proust is forgiven for what would be unacceptable by today's publishing standards.

SO don't wait four more years - you'll not care by then or have forgotten much of the threads of the protean plot which keeps all volumes tied into one - for most of what is written in these last volumes is the rich reward the reader deserves after having hung in there until the end, to discover the final fate and full identities of all the rich and lively characters we have come to love - Charlus and St Loup, Albertine and Gilberte, oh, and Mme Potbus' maid - remember her?


The Prisoner and the Fugitive translated by Carol Clark

This is almost a novel within the novel as it deals in two parts with the final resolution of the narrator's relationship to Albertine, this character who, more so than any other, the narrator has kept directly from the reader's curious view and desire to know her in her own voice.

Finding Time Again translated by Ian Patterson

The fates of the rest of the characters are revealed, and the narrator in this last volume himself ages (or catches up to the age at which he began telling this long story -- and we will learn why he had to write it all before his death, as the line between fiction and reality between Marcel the narrator and Marcel the famed French writer nearly disappears). This is the volume where, winding down at last from what was always a nebulous plot to one last social scene,like a curtain call, all the characters take their final bows together in old age (either still alive or in the narrator's memory of them). And there are some great surprises left to discover, which hopefully too much reading of Proustian criticism, biographies, and reviews hasn't already revealed to the `well informed but too reluctant to read A la Recherché du Temps Perdu for themselves' lover of literature.

Though it bears the title of Proust's seven-volume masterpiece, this is actually just the final volume, called "Finding Time Again" in this new translation. This particular book would be the British paperback edition, for the American press run has so far only given us four volumes, all of which are for sale on Amazon in a uniform style.

There are small but real differences between the British and American editions. With their greater tolerance for continental foibles, the Brits retained French punctuation, using dashes instead of quotation marks for conversation. They also retained the French wherever Proust makes a literary reference, providing a translation in the notes; in the American edition, this policy is reversed.

In reading the first two volumes ("Swanns' Way" and "In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower") I noticed typographical errors that might well have resulted in converting the British to the American languages, rather than from French to English. For example, on page 95 of "In the Shadow" there is the phrase "Professor Cottard and his wife were not to partake of the pleasure" when the sentence should actually read "NOW to partake," since Swann has decided to introduce the Cottards to the Duchesse! Not earthshaking, but it does rather spoil Proust's little joke.

In short, these British paperbacks will serve very nicely if the American reader is in a hurry to complete the novel, and they may also be more free of errors. But I will probably wait for the uniform hardcover Viking volumes.

I haven't read Mr. Patterson's translation of volume seven, but I give it five stars based on the company it keeps.

Robert Allen has produced an amazing work on the oft-reported saga of the Marine Corps and Iwo Jima, that terrible island. As an amateur military historian (and former Marine who has attempted to reconstruct certain campaigns), I found myself asking over and over again: where and how did he get this information? how long did it take to accurately compile, for instance, the daily "muster rolls" of an entire battalion in the field? The picture that emerges of the Iwo Jima assault is even more horrifying from this perspective of dry military "diaries" and the daily recounting of casualties and replacements. This was island warfare against Japan at its worst, and Allen's microscopic treatment helps to bring it all into focus at the fighting man's level. With the United States Government itself doing little to advance in-depth WWII analysis, writers like Allen are doing a great service for those who do care.

Bob Allen's work represents the best kind of historical narrative-a first hand narrative from the perspective of one who was in motion on Iwo Jima's bloodied sands, and the thoughtful and detailed analysis provided by his focus on the overall picture of the events. Bob's devotion is to telling the story and painting as much of the canvas as he can, while there is time to do so. The memories are 50+ years out there, but they are as clear as though they were this morning. You must read this, and treasure it as a family heirloom of American history. Bob Allen, and his fellow Marines and Sailors, put it all on the line for us, and this is the story of what that really means. Thanks, Bob. Semper fi.

This is one of the most exciting books I have ever read. There is action from start to finish. I am just waiting for a sequel.

Flamingo is a Jewel of a Book !! A must read. Advenduture, romance, history, ethics; this book has it all.