Boyd Books

I came across the Judith Saxton works earlier this year, I can say that I never been disapointed with any of her book. Still Waters tells the story of Tess and Mal two people who different ends of the earth, but with the coming Second World War they finally meet and hope to discover truth behind a secret that has haunted Tess most of her life. Ms. Saxton is able to make the reader a sense on how life is wartime Britian. A really great book!

I've read this to my daughters and given it to their friends. Classics are hard to come by now-a-days.

Highly recommended

In order to write good poetry, you have to be able to compress words, add imagery, employ similes, metaphors, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. Then you must try to come up with a new theme, or a new twist on an old subject, so that in the end, we are left with something breathless and bittersweet--an insight that stays with us and enriches and influences our life. Audrey Baird has done all this in her first book, Storm Coming! (Boyds Mills Press).

There isn't a cliché or hackneyed phrase in the whole book. If you didn't like rainy weather, you will now. You will embrace not only rain, but thunder, lightening, rainbows, puddles, fog, galoshes, wind, drizzle, and clouds.

I am amazed at Audrey's freshness. Take lines like "Churning clouds with heavy eyebrows brush the hills at daybreak...." What an original appropriate metaphor.

"Storm Concert" is spectacular with its comparison to the philharmonic, no reaching for comparisons, no grappling for simile, all of it falls into place so smoothly that it fits like your skin. It is never jarring, never overwritten, never self conscious.

One of the best lines in the whole book is in "Rainy Windows." At the very end. The poem reads; "In the car on a rainy day, the blip-blap, blip-blap of windshield wipers makes everything outside blurry and soft-edged, like dreams just after waking."

LIKE DREAMS JUST AFTER WAKING! Blurry and soft edged. Captured exactly. A powerful line.

In "Thief" we have the storm man slipping through the night with a bag of rain on his shoulder . . . lightning flashes from his fingers!

It is difficult to sell a BOOK of poetry. It is close to impossible if you are a new author and don't have a huge track record. So this is a coup, and it is fine to realize someone is out there sniffing out quality in a publishing world that usually looks for more of the same thing. If it sells in pink, do it in blue.

My only regret is the book has illustrations. I don't like to be told, especially with poetry, what to imagine. I want the words themselves to create the pictures in my mind. Illustrations of poems are interference in our creativity and imagination. Any illustrations. And I found some of these illustrations pedestrian. When you read, you can move away from annoying noises, fighting neighbors, unpleasant scenery, to the quiet of your own hearth or atelier. But you can't move away from annoying pictures in a book-you have to take them with you. That is unfair.

But the heart of the beast is in the poem. And the heart of the poem is Audrey.

About the Author: Judy Delton has published over two hundred books with Dell, Harper, Houghton Mifflin, Doubleday, Dutton, Harcourt, Hyperion, Disney and others. Her Pee Wee Scout series has sold over 7.5 million, and has just come out in Turkish, and in Braille. She has two new novels out with Houghton Mifflin, and regularly publishes a plethora of essays, articles, and literary criticism.

Cannot say enough about this particular WH40K novel. Written almost completely from the perspective of the Chaos Marines. Too often we see only the viewpoint of the Emerperor's forces in their quest to rid Chaos from the galaxy. Here we are treated (and it is a treat) to the ambitions and workings of a chapter of Chaos Marines as they seige one of the Emperor's planets.
Characters are interesting, the "battle prose" is simply excellent and the story has a rightfully epic "feel" to it.
Warhammer 40K fans should read this tome as a rare insight into the mind of the "enemy." We seldom get to examine the mindset of the dark forces.
I read this all in two days and was amazed at what a great story had unfolded before me.
I hope they reprint it for the fans who missed it the first time around.

George is young and wealthy, and during his frequent visits to The Empire, a popular Victorian music hall, he falls in love with Dolly Minetti, wife and partner of an illusionist. Her death on stage prompts George to forge a relationship with Dolly's daughter Maggie, a red-haired ingenue determined to take her place as Max Minetti's partner. George's family watches in fear and anger as their son's attachment to Maggie leads him from one disaster to another and a young newspaper reporter named Jack always seems to be on hand to chronicle the events. Could the formidable Ormiston Chant, an influential woman who believes the theater encourages immorality, have anything to do with this?

No matter how sophisticated the programming languages become, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Basic. It was the first programming language that I learned and my first computer was a TRS-80 model 1. I wrote so many lines of Basic code in my early years that up until only a few years ago and a full decade of working as a programmer; I had written more lines in Basic than any other language.
This book is the first book on structured Basic that I ever read. It took me from my joyful but foolish use of multiple go-to's to some ordering of my code. While I confess that it was a hard transition for me, I did make it and have gone on to teach object-oriented programming in C++ and Java at the college level.
Looking back through this book brought back many fond memories of banging away on the keys creating meandering code that I always somehow managed to get to work right. Although archaic, it is a language that I will never forget.

Boyd, Malcolm. "Take Off the Masks", White Crane, Lethe Press, 2007.

The Journey

Amos Lassen

"Take Off the Masks" is Malcolm Boyd's autobiography and he writes about his journey and his struggle to reconcile his sexuality and his love for G-d. He writes with great compassion and style and is totally clear and easy to read. Many of us have had this same struggle and I have always felt that by reading how someone else managed to come to terms with himself makes it that much easier for me to do the same. Many of us have been told that we have to make a choice between our sexuality and our religious convictions and that there is no compromise. We eventually learn that this is not necessarily true.
Boyd approached thus situation and shows that if we "take off the masks" and be who we really are, than the struggle is that much easier. Spirituality can help us to overcome many issues and while each has to find his own way, Boyd's personal struggle can shed new light on how to approach the situation. If we look within ourselves and examine who we are, we are more apt to find a way of self-acceptance.

This is one of my favorite books. During Poetry projects I usually refer to it for inspiration. The Pictures on each page are as bright and colorful as the Limericks themselves. Even if you have no idea what a limerick is, you will enjoy this book. I have had it for 12 years & still like to read every night! =}
Enjoy

These comics are enjoyed by our entire family. Our 10 year old son can't seem to put them down as the illustrations and content are clever and entertaining. We love how Bently Boyd brings history to life in a fun, creative and easy reading style for all reading levels. After my son is finished reading he can't wait to share what he read with the entire family. We have acquired the entire set of Chester Comix with Content Series and love them all. These make a GREAT gift for anyone of any age or even for teachers as they are an awesome learning tool. A gift that keeps giving. This is a definate must have for the entire family. ENJOY!

I ordered this book because my Great Uncle Julius Yackie died at the Rangoon Prison in Burma after his glider's tow rope broke and they crashed. It means a lot to our family to have John Boyd's account of what it was like for Julius (Duley) to be in that prison. I would love to add to this review once I finish reading the book but I can tell you that it is a sobering read. There are so many well known battles from World War II, but the Burma campaign seems to have been forgotten.