Ball Books

This review originally appeared on my Weblog:...

While Providence may not have had a major league team since 1884, in R.D. Rosen's world, Providence is a major league team, home to the Providence Jewels, along with an architectural treasure of a ball park located somewhere around India Point park.

Rosen has written a series of mysteries featuring Harvey Blissberg, a former Providence Jewel player turned detective turned motivational speaker. Blissberg is a great detective character- by turns blustery, unsure of himself, and self-effacing. He's a very likable character, flaws and all. And of course, seeing places like Wayland Square, Haven Brothers, and the Industrial National Bank Building is very interesting for the Rhode Island savvy among us.

Rosen's geography is a little off (in Dead Ball, he has Routes 95 and 195 confused at points-- 195 passes over Richmond Street, not 95!) but that's a tiny niggle. He gets lots of geographical things right too!

The books are great fun if you like mysteries. The plots move along relatively quickly, and reading about Providence and the mythical Providence Jewels makes you wish we did have a ball club (forget about the headaches of traffic, parking, and corruption for a minute.)

Read the books, you'll be glad you did!

It looks like Providence Jewel outfielder, Moss Cooley, may be ready to do the impossible. His bat is red hot; he's hit in 46 consecutive games, and he's zeroing in on DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak record...the record, experts said, that would never be broken. But not everyone is thrilled by the possibility, and with all his success and notoriety, comes hate mail. When Moss receives a headless lawn jockey with a death threat attached, team management decides to call in the big guns, former Jewel's center fielder, turned private detective, Harvey Blissberg, to protect their star player. But "babysitting" isn't enough for Harvey, and once he sinks his teeth into the case and starts digging, he can't let go until he gets to the truth..... Mystery lovers and baseball enthusiasts will be glad to know that Richard Rosen is finally back, after a long hiatus, with another Harvey Blissberg mystery. Dead Ball is a well paced, intriguing, page turner, full of great characters, vivid scenes, and subtle plot twists that keep you off balance and guessing to the end. But it's Mr Rosen's smart, crisp, intelligent writing, and witty and irreverent dialogue that really makes this novel stand out, and his obvious love of the game, and knowledge of baseball history adds real credibility to the story. With its stunning conclusion, and very satisfying ending, Dead Ball is a novel that should definitely be placed at the top of every mystery fan's "Must Read" list. If you're new to the Harvey Blissberg series, start at the beginning with Strike Three, You're Dead, and read them all. If you're already a groupie, Harvey's back, and better than ever!

Harvey Blisberg was once a good outfielder for the Providence Jewels. After retiring he became a private investigator until all the evil he witnessed threatened to turn him into a madman. He quit to become a motivational speaker, but gave up on that too because he did not believe his own words.

Harvey accepts a job as bodyguard to Jewel's superstar Moss Cooley, a black man closing in on Joe DiMaggio's once unbreakable hitting record. The excellent baseball player has (not surprisingly) begun receiving hate mail but there is one death threat that worries team officials because they think that someone is very serious about harming Moss. As he watches over his client, Harvey realizes that this is not about breaking a record by a black man, but is about Moss and someone connected to him. Harvey places himself in peril by following the serpentine trail from Moss to his tormentor.

Baseball fans are going to love this exciting sports mystery that stars an endearing curmudgeon as a hero. The action is fast-paced and the characters, especially Harvey and Moss, feel genuine. With MEAN STREET, RD Rosen hits a home run to rival that of Maz.

Harriet Klausner

Harvey Blissberg, PI, ex-center fielder is back with his old major league team, the Providence Jewels, who have a new park since he played for them, 15 years before. The Jewels superstar, Moss Cooley, is close to breaking Di Maggio's 56 game hitting streak, but someone is trying to rattle him. The team hires Blissberg to protect Cooley.

Harvey and Moss learn to trust and respect each other and little by little, the mystery is unraveled. I was sure I would dislike this book, since I find professional sports boring and Providence is one of my least favorite cities. I was wrong. Rosen makes the game and the people interesting and exciting again (I stopped following baseball when the Giants left New York, when it was a game and not big business as it is today.) Bits and pieces of baseball history are woven into the story as is Providence and its landmarks including Haven's Brothers, a prototype the first diner.

I used to be a huge fan of dbz back when I was younger, but it is only now that i actually buy the manga. At first, I was unsure of buying any: most of the reviews are done by kids. So is this a kiddy manga? should I have bought this way back when I was 12 years old watching the edited tv show on cartoon network? Never fear. this volume (and all the other volumes) is well written, entertaining, and actually quite violent. I enjoy it whole heartedly.

it was all cool when goku turned super saiyan and was beating frezia pretty bad. It was all great until I got to the end of the book and frezia was still alive!! I had to read volume 12 to see the end of frezia. That cost me another 7.95.

As the Genki dama is used as a desperation maneuver, hope is almost lost in Kuririn, Gohan, and Piccolo. Vegeta's corpse lies on the surface of Namek. The Genki Dama is unleashed, and it seems that Freeza has been defeated. Unfortunately, Freeza is still alive. As Freeza lifts Kurirn into the air, a power starts awakening in Goku. Kuririn is killed by Freeza. BRMMM. GRUMMMMMM. HAAAAAAA. BOOM. Goku has become a Super Saiyan. The one thing Freeza feared has just become reality. Will his tyranny come to an end? When you have a Super Saiyan on your side, lets just say "YOU'VE GOT ODDS"

Goku hits Frieza with the Genki Dama, but he's still alive, and then he kills Kuririn. This causes Goku to lose it, transforming into a super saiyan! Frieza is dead meat now, even when he powers up he gets thrashed. It's pretty much SSJGoku beating up Frieza for most of the book, but it's still pretty cool. It ends in the next volume(which begins the Anroids/Cell saga, and introduces Trunks). It's an awesome finish to the Goku vs. Frieza fight.

This Book Is Awsome. Its so Easy to read AndI think u should buy it Its just like the show! If u read #1 its the Series. And theres Some parts Are NOt for kids... I Say not to let anybody under 10 read it.

The Dragon Ball Z manga is a piece of art and should be in every collector's hands. This DBZ #2 is actually Dragon Ball #18 of 42, but this part of the story is fine to begin with; backstory is not a problem if you have read DBZ Vol. 1, and since DBZ is a different stage of the lives of the characters. It is 190 pages of fun and wonder. Besides, for only (...) why would anyone pass up this opportunity? I guarantee this story will have you hooked. (...)

This is the best DBZ yet (although, DB is better than DBZ)!!!! The Saiyans are coming to Earth and everyone is training! You get to see some fighting too. I reccomend buying it!!!!!!!!!

Whoa!!I bought this book with #3 at a Borders in Maine and when I read it at home-WOO-HOO!!!Now I've only read volumes 1-4[which I own,they rock!],but I think this is the best DBZ volume ever!!!(At least 'til Gotenks comes out)=)BY the way,there will be 26 DBZ volumes total.

it is a very exciting book and i cant wait to read the next it is like no book i have ever read it is my best and my most liked in all my other dragon ball books

This Volume marked the completion of my Dragon Ball Magna. This Volume has many twists and i'm completely satisfied.

this is way better than dbz. just like the song by jet:hey roll over dj.

A must have for any true Dragonball Z fan. This manga includes the original artwork and continues the amazing story of Dragonball. A must have for an Akira Toriyama fan (author of Dragonball & Dr. Slump) his work continues to inspire Manga and Anime alike all over the world.

A must have for any true Dragonball Z fan. This manga includes the original artwork and continues the amazing story of Dragonball. A must have for an Akira Toriyama fan (author of Dragonball & Dr. Slump) his work continues to inspire Manga and Anime alike all over the world.

this dragonball rocks in it are some great macthes like goku vs. kuririn, goku vs. tenshinhan, and jackie chun vs. tenshinhan. im really mad at viz comics for ending it right at comic 132 the arms race. but here is whats going on goku is fighting tenshinhan for champion they are both using really cool moves and tenshinhan was a bout to use an extremely powerful move.

This book is totally awesome!!!! In it Goku and Tenshinhan fight to win the world tournament! You should buy it!!!!!!!!!!!

The manga magazine SHONEN JUMP brings a never-before-seen volume of Dragon Ball to America. This one begins in the midst of the 22nd "Tenkaichi Budokai" fighting tournament. At the start, cool bald-headed Kuririn is fighting the single-haired, doll-like Chaozu. Kuririn defeats him with an unusual method, but you'll have to read the book to find out what it is.
Later, the three-eyed Tenshinhan goes up against the impostor Jackie Chun (no relation to Jackie Chan). After Chun's stunning defeat, the half-monkey main character, Goku, must fight Tenshinhan.
The next fight is surprising. The "two best friends being forced to fight each other" theme is common in manga, but this time around, it's more interesting.
This book combines astounding battle action with a dollop of humor...Not only that, but this is probably the most clean book of the entire Dragon Ball series...DB Volume 11 is an excellent book for anyone who loves manga.

My daughter loved this book. One of the best books Ive seen in quite a long time. The illustrations are bright and colorful and the poetic text is perfect for children.

This book is very creative. I enjoyed reading it. The detailed pantings are wonderful. I loved how the illustrator drew the fairies and flowers together. Another thing I liked is that the author used descriptive statments. Over all this was a really good book.

This is a fun and magical story about fairies for children of all ages. It will spark your childs imagination and encourage them to dream. It's an awesome adventure full of dancing and singing. I especially like the colorful illustrations and the incorporation of the cute animals, plants, nature, and the outdoor setting.

Written by Stephen J. Brooks in a lyrical rhyming prose, and featuring colorful illustrations on each page by Denise Seah, "The Fairy Ball" is a 32-page picturebook story of a young girl named Madelyn who tiptoes out into the night and dances with the fairies under the full moon. An especially ideal choice for bedtime reading by parents to their youngest children, "The Fairy Ball" is conceptually original, sweetly imaginative, highly entertaining, and particularly recommended for ages 3 through 6.

Anyone who collects Harmony Kingdom will find this book interesting and extremely helpful. The author provides a wealth of information on the company and the artists, an explanation of how the boxes are made, and a listing for each piece. The listing for each piece includes a picture, a description, information on variations, and the secrets to be found on the piece. A really handy book to have with you when you go out hunting for HK!

Even if you have the first edition of this book, I think you will want this edition too. It includes all the pieces released through 1999 and more background information on the artists and the company than appeared in the first edition.

Excellent Guide. The book is organized in a manner that makes it easy to find individual pieces. The information is both informative and entertaining (to a collector of HK anyway). I was surprised to find so many of the new pieces in the book, Leanna must have worked up to the last second including them. This is a must for any Harmony Kingdom collector.

This book is alive with information and color. There's an interesting summary of the history of Harmony Ball Company followed by a step-by-step (with pictures) rendition of how Harmony Kingdom Treasure Jests are made. I loved reading about all the pieces and their hidden meanings and secrets, each with a lovely full-color photo. The index will help me manage my GROWING Harmony Kindgom collection! Wonderful book, well worth the price.

The second edition of the Harmony Kingdom reference guide provides even more fascinating background on the company than the first, and provides even more useful data on the collection.

If you're an HK collector, this second edition is indispensible. If you're not one, reading this book will make you one.

There was a large group of retirements immediately before the publication of the first edition, so the second edition provides production figures for thirty pieces whose true rarity may be a surprise to HK collectors.

The background information in the first volume is not completely repeated, which prevents the first edition from becoming truly obsolete.

With hundreds of new books monthly claiming to reinvent the bio-mechanical wheel, "Hit and Run Baseball" is still the model of intelligent and insightful thinking on developing a sophisticated approach to the game. His approach continues to work.

I haven't done many of the suggested drills, but simply as bedside reading this book does a fantastic job breaking down critical elements of the game. I've used many tips I learned from it, especially in baserunning, with success. In baseball you can think too little, and you can think too much; this book finds the right level.

This book is a great guide to an aggressive style offense. As a player I like to take the game to the opponent and make them work. Coach Delmonico shows the essentials to an aggressive offense. I plan on incorporating some of the ideas in this book into my own coaching style. Sitting back and waiting for the big inning can win some games, but aggressive offense can win more games. I recommend it highly to all coaches.

Rod Delmonico tells you a lot of things in this book you probably have heared before. But then I'm sure even an experienced coach will find some great new hints. Also, I have never seen so much vital information about how to play the game of baseball put together in one place in such a consice and easy to read way. Rod teaches you basically about bunting and base running. A chapter covering the basics of hitting (again mentioning everything important in just a couple of pages) is included as well. Curiously though the actual hit and run play isn't covered. Only bunt and steal plays, as well as general base running are included. Those are covered expertly though. I will make this book required reading for my players (since it's not too long, you can read it within four hours). I loved the fact that Rod didn't relate any boring stories from his own experience, like many other baseball book authors do, but just put down material you could use directly.

I read this book a month ago.It is a small too the point
covering all the topics.Pictures are excellent and professional.Some pictures are very useful for the doctors .For example I have never seen ROSE SPOTS in Typhoid.In this book they have showed it very clearly!
I recommend this book to all the undergraduate and postgraduate medical students.

I bought this book a month ago and find it very interesting and informative.It is compact,upto date,pictures are sharp,clear and help the clinician to make a good concept of the disease.For example the picture of ROSE SPOTS .In my clinical experience I have never got a chance to look at the rose spots but now from this picture I can easily make out what rose spots look like.I recommend this book to all the undergraduate and postgrauate students.

I bought this book and read it in a week.It is a compact,easy to read and simple book with excellent pictures of all the important infectious diseases.Some pictures are very clear and informative.
I recommend this book to all the undergraduate and postgraduate medical students.

I bought this pocket book atlas when I was a junior medical student 3 years ago in a Book Exhibition. It has joined my "illustrative books collection" since that time. Illustrations explain better than texts, and you tend to remember the diseases quickly.

Features of this pocket book include:

- It covers wide range of infectious diseases compared to its size.

- User-friendly format.

- The text is on the left side of the page, where each disease is dealth with according to its etiology, incidence, pathogenesis, clinical features, complications, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

- High-quality color clinical pictures on the right side of the page. These pictures include microscopic (histopathology) pictures, macroscopic specimens, electron microscopy, imaging (e.g. x-rays, CT), diagrams (e.g. hepatitis antigens), and clinical bed-side pictures.

- Contents include:
Classical infectious diseases of childhood [Measles, Rubella, Congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), Mumps, Erythema infectiousum, and Chickenpox], Herpez zoster (shingles), Herpez simplex infections, Kawasaki (mucucutaneous lymph node) syndrome, Lyme disease, Orf, Herpangina, Hand foot and mouth disease, Infectious mononucleosis, Toxoplasmosis, Cytomegalovirus, Viral hepatitis, Leptospirosis, Staphyloccocal infection, Osteomyelitis, Infections with Streptococcus pyogenes, Scarlet fever, Anthrax, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Enteric (Typhoid and paratyphoid) fevers, Infantile gastroenteritis, Pseudomembranous colitis, Meningococcal infections, Bacterial meningitis (non-meningococcal), Viral meningitis, Tuberculosis, Pertussis, Acute croup and bronchiolitis, Community-acquired pneumonia, Legionnaire's disease, Lung abscess, Erythema nodosum, Stevens-Jonson syndrome, Antibiotic rashes, Syphilis, Gonococcaemia, Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and Index.

- It can be used for quick revision among medical students as well as residents.

- This pocket book is in its 2nd edition (1999), published by Churchill Livingstone company, and comes in 125 pages.

All in all, this pocket book is recommended for high-yield revision.

As-of this writing, June 2008, "The Ingredients" is in-print as an Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction titled "The Elements".

Philip Ball is one of the better authors in the realm of general science literature. This short book examines the Periodic Table of Elements and how the various elements were discovered by humans, and what function they serve in nature and human society. Combining a history of discovery, with hard science about many of the elements, the book is a good, interesting, easy-to-read primer in basic chemistry and how materials science.

Philip Ball's The Ingredients is a short and sweet introduction to the chemical elements. It is not a comprehensive description of each of the 110+ elements that appear on the periodic table. Rather it is a history of the concept of an element and a definition of what an element is done in context with examples. All the important terms from Chemistry 101 are there - atom, electron, element, isotope, neutron, nucleus, proton - as are all the important people and events in the history of the elements, but it is done in Ball's extremely readable prose style. Even though I've taught basic chemistry at the high school level and I've heard all this stuff before, I thoroughly enjoyed this short, but concept dense book.

There are 92 naturally occuring elements. They have been here since the Earth cooled, but only in the last couple of centuries have we truly come to understand them. In 'the ingredients', Phillip Ball takes the reader on a fast ride through the development of our understanding of the elements. Aristotle and his contemporaries saw everything pretty much as a combination of earth, wind, fire, and water. Variations of this view lasted well in the middle ages.

The chapter on gold, precious from ancient times, is a bridge, bringing us into the modern age, where we see the development of the Periodic Table, an organization of information about the elements. Scientific method and technological advances allowed chemists to identify each of the elements. Physics, radiochemistry and quantum mechanics provided an explanation of why they act as they do.

There are interesting discussions of medicine, alchemy and other topics. The chapter on manmade elements is also interesting.

This little book was fun to read and should be easily followed by the non-scientific reader.