Frank Books

I am writing to advise that the availability listed by Amazon is very misleading. I ordered one on October 19 and my promised ship date now could be as late as December 24. I'd advise you to buy this book where you can rely on the shipping promised when you place the order. Sign me unhappy with Amazon.

Outstanding book on slag glass. Any one thats in slag glass will find this very helpful. Excellent pictures, tells the year it was manufacture, and tells what its worth than and now.

This is a good book for American or "recent" slag. It was informative, especially with the recent pricings in the back.

Outstanding book on slag glass. Any one thats in slag glass will find this very helpful. Excellent pictures, tells the year it was manufacture, and tells what its worth than and now.

Wow, this story keeps on rolling! (And I'm rolling on the floor laughing!) The visuals of this poor man in the bathroom scene are beyond funny...they're outrageous. All I can say is, "yehaaah! I'm going for #3!"

Mr. Bosworth does a wonderful job of observing people and highlighting on the everyday humor that is shockingly truthful. A fun and enjoyable read!

Mother Nature seems to have it in for our hero! While he is indisposed, the cat and neighbor battle for supremacy over the birds. During the confusion, his twists and turns cause a delicate, albeit, hilarious problem. This is pure entertainment!

Act II

In a three part story, the second act is usually the toughest to plot. In order to build on the momentum of the first act, the primary challenge introduced to the protagonists either has to become increasingly difficult, or new problems must arise to further complicate matters.

`Amok! - Part 2' wastes little time delivering a fresh bounty of laughs, and wastes no time building on the momentum of Act I. Actually, there is no waste at all, which you can tell is clearly going to be the number two problem for poor, hobbled Frank - the evil grackles (think Heckle and Jeckle on Steroids) still number one with a bullet, or a pellet, or quite possibly a broken umbrella, it's really hard to tell at this point.

For the waste-management problem, Frank schedules an appointment. The exchange between Frank and his English-challenged physician is quite hysterical, and made me think of the impressive clergyman in `The Princess Bride,' played to uproarious perfection by Peter Cook (others may be reminded of Peter Sellers as Dr. Fu Manchu, or the little restaurant owner in `Lethal Weapon 4,' depending on your taste).

Bosworth writes much of this three part tale in short little bursts. He keeps the dialogue hopping, and he keeps the mad-cap pace of his mad-cap little ditty zipping along like a zealous conductor on Benzedrine. He is also very crafty. Each humorous line or situation sets up one or several of the bizarre escapades that follow, like falling dominoes in reverse. Lines used in Part One became funnier in Part Two, and funnier still in Part Three (yes, I had to read ahead). His scenes are well connected, and flow seamlessly into one another, like bizarre puzzle pieces fashioned by Kafka, if Kafka had had a sense of humor.

You simply have to feel sorry for a man who endures what comes next. Suffice it to say it's one of those things that has to be read to be believed - and even then you're not quite sure. At some point, I'm not exactly sure where - could have been the toilet-paper mummy, or the wet cat clawing in a naked man's lap - I stopped seeing Frank's dark and friendly mug, and saw instead a youthful Jim Carrey flailing dangerously about; only Carrey has the physical, acrobatic acting skills to re-enact this scene without killing himself (maybe someone should give him a script).

After reading this section you know two more things about Frank W. Bosworth: 1) He is not shy, and 2) it is doubtful he will ever endure anything this hilariously embarrassing again.

My glass is lined up. I'm going to have a whack.

ERO

If you only have time to read one biography of Amy Carmichael, don't miss this one. It's the best one available. A close second is The Wild Bird Child: A Life of Amy Carmichael by Derik Bingham.

This book was my first introduction to Amy Carmichael many years ago. More of her books are in print today, but when I read this book I became acquainted with "Amma's" life of dedication. I also was amazed with the depth of her talent in prose and poetry.

Amy Carmichael left the British Isles to be a missionary in India. She never came home. Dohnavur became her home and the people of India became her people. Her quiet life of service (for many years an invalid) still shines brightly. I can say that this book about Amy Carmichael changed my life.

I highly recommend it as well as other books by her and about her.

Amy Carmichael is regarded as one of the great missionaries of the early 20th Century. One of her greatest legacies was her loving work in rescuing girls from the Hindu temples (the practice is now illegal).

One wonders where biographer Bishop Houghton ever found this much information. If I had been Amy Carmichael, I might rather be dead than see this much revealed about me. However, the book is written compassionately, so that one has the impression: "She was a honey". In fact, this is a precious biography, for the reason that it reveals so much about the inner life of one so greatly used by God.

Bishop Houghton, rather than setting up Amy Carmichael as a saint -- or even as a sinner -- sought to "present her as she was", yet as "God's chosen instrument . . . amazingly fitted for His purpose". He was attracted to her first, he writes, "because, in contrast to so many authors, she steadily refrained from including a picture of herself in any of her books."

Amy Carmichael is known for her pioneering approach to cross-cultural missions. This came about through a seemingly insignificant incident in Japan in 1893, which I thought worth reproducing here, in her own words:

"We went to see an old lady who was very ill. She had not heard the Gospel before, but was willing and eager to listen. So I spoke and Misaki San translated, and our hearts prayed most earnestly. `Lord Jesus, help her. O help her to understand and open her heart to Thee now.' She seemed to be just about to turn to Him in faith when she suddenly noticed my hands. It was cold weather and I had on fur gloves. `What are these?' she asked, stretching out her hand and touching mine. She was old and ill and easily distracted. I cannot remember whether or not we were able to recall her to what mattered so much more than gloves. But this I do remember. I went home, took off my English clothes, put on my Japanese kimono, and never again, I trust, risked so very much for the sake of so little."

This is a monumental work, with nearly 400 pages densely, meticulously, and lovingly written. It is not the easiest read -- but it surely would be worthwhile.

This biography of an amazing woman of God is truly food for the soul. In contrast the Elizabeth Elliot biography "A chance to die" seems to have an unconscious negative slant which detracts from this servant of God. This woman was surrendered to the Lord more than anyone else we know of in the 20th century except perhaps Oswald Chambers. We should ask God that we might be used by Him to just a fraction that "Amma" was. The work of Dohnavur still continues to this day.

Frank McCourt has a way with words! His memoir of growing up poor in Ireland, with a drunk for a father and lazy, shiftless mother is written without malice. He and his brothers are left to their own devices to keep themselves fed, warm and clothed when Frank, the oldest is not even four years old. They live in a house where the main floor floods every year and they have to wade through the sewage to live in the remaining room upstairs until the water recedes. They grow so cold that they resort to tearing the walls apart for firewood. And yet his mother needs her cigarettes and his father needs his drink.

Frank's tenacity and humor in the midst of such misery is his salvation. And it is what makes this memoir so poignant. His own parents and grandparents, neighbors and the Catholic church leave Frank and his brothers to their own devices for survival. And they survive! And go to America. And it's a true story.

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."
This bleak passage begins Angela's Ashes, a starkly realistic account of a young boy growing up in poverty, in the slums of Ireland. McCourt does a wonderful job of making you feel what he does, be it remorse, shame, sadness, excitement, amusement, or pure joy. It is a wonder he survived his rough childhood; three of the eight children in his family were carried off by sickness and lack of decent living conditions. His family scraped by in a miserable shelter in a neighborhood so poor that there was only one latrine for the entire street, and when winter comes the latrine floods, making their downstairs rooms uninhabitable. McCourt himself was nearly killed by typhoid fever, and later develops an eye infection that caused him to lose one of the few joys of his life: his job, for it makes him feel like a man. He definitely is more of a man to the family than his father, who is unemployed for most of the book, and when he manages to pick up a job, drinks away the pay and is fired for failing to show up for work, failing the family over and over again until he disappears to England, abandoning them.
This book is written from a child's eyes, and this aspect is accented by the lack of punctuation. McCourt experiences daily disappointments, and rare occasions of happiness, as his family struggles to survive in the poorest parts of Ireland, discriminated against because of their backgrounds and odd accents, and living off the dole. It is a true account of life in Ireland, not at all sugar-coated. Angela's Ashes is a stirring, gripping memoir of life in an impoverished home.

Frank McCourt has captured the truth of childhood and the gutwrenching reality of a family living in poverty. The voices are just haunting, and he writes in a way that lets his readers peek in the window and examine the daily life of his characters. Somehow, hope and humor are woven through stories of sorrow and deprivation.

You know how sometimes a book is just so good, when you see you are nearing the end, you want to slow down and savor those last few pages?
Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt,was that for me.It is a wonderfully beautiful memoir and an engrossing story. McCourt tells the story of his life as a boy, growing up dirt poor in Ireland. And he tells it in a way that makes it impossible to stop reading. I always had a hard time finding a point to stop turning the pages, I had to know what would happen to Frankie McCourt.

The writing is incredibly honest. It flows from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph,page to page. McCourt puts himself right back into the mind of his younger self, and seems to be talking and thinking just as he would from ages 4 through a young man. He speaks of his family. His father that couldn't keep his wages in his pocket on pay day, and could not make it home without stopping for a pint(or two) along the way. Yet a man who seemed to understand his young sons, and always had what seemed sage advice and a great love for his children. His mother's suffering, with the loss of children dyeing, trying to make do for her family by begging, and did whatever it took to keep her children warm and fed. He writes quite honestly, about his schooling, his relatives,the many illnesses he and the family went through, his taking to petty thefts to keep from starving, discovering his sexuality, the jobs he had to do, and his great desire to go back to America, where he was born.

The stories are sad, and will tug at your heartstrings, but the humor he uses in describing the sometimes dehumanizing events(having to empty and clean disgusting chamber pots among them) make this a stand out read instead of a woe-is-me theme.The characters jump off the page, you can hear them speak with their thick Irish accents, or in some cases New York. He writes of all the doors that were closed in his face, when he needed help, but you can feel the tenacity with which he continued to move his life forward. There are many laugh out loud moments of little Frankie's adventures, and other times you may need to have the Kleenex handy.One thing for sure, you'll be thinking of Little Frankie McCourt for a long time after the read. Through thick and thin(mostly thin) this was a family rich with love. A love that is contagious.

I am very much looking forward to reading the next books, "Tis" and "Teacher Man", the "sequels".Thanks Mr. McCourt, for a wonderful time, spent with you and your family in Ireland.

Recommended for everyone, but a must read for anyone planning to write their own memoirs.

Enjoy the Read....Laurie

Reviewed by Anne Marie Medema (age 12) for Reader Views (2/08)

I am impressed that the author Carol Ann Lee has been interested in Anne Frank since she was 6-years-old. Carol Ann Lee has a unique ability to bring the Holocaust and the main character of Anne Frank to life. Carol Ann Lee has lived in Amsterdam, a town where portions of the Holocaust took place. Thus, she was probably able to thoroughly research and to visit the places where the holocaust took place. I have read some of Carol Ann Lee's other books and she is very good with descriptions of characters, settings and places. She also adds historical information about the Holocaust in the back of the book. Some of the things she adds are interesting statistics about the Jewish population before and after the war. Maps showing the areas where the Nazi's controlled Europe are also given along with locations of the death and concentration camps. All these references helped me to link together the chain of events occurring during the Holocaust.

This book includes references of the diary of Anne Frank. The areas which the diary does not include, Carol Ann Lee covers by putting it into her own diary as if she were Anne Frank hiding. Carol Ann Lee also talks about other children who lived during the Holocaust and whose lives were affected by the Holocaust. The mentally and physically abused were used as experiments or were put to death. In some cases the women that were mentally and physically wronged were deprived of having children because the Nazi's only wanted purebred healthy children. The anti-Nazi children were normally hidden or if discovered by the Nazi's were killed or died while working for the Nazi's. The Nazi children at the age of 14-years were enrolled in Nazi Youth. Nazi Youth is where they would learn what is wrong with the Jews. Anne Frank died three weeks before the allies liberated the death camp Auschwitz. Her father was the only family member that survived the Holocaust. Meip Gross is the woman who hid the Frank family for over two years and she found Anne's diary. She hoped that Anne Frank would still be alive so she could hand back the diary to Anne. Sadly Meip Gross was only able to hand back the diary to Anne's father Otto Frank.

This is one of the most heartbreaking books I have ever read because of what the Nazi's did to poor, innocent children. It is also interesting to see what actually happened during the Holocaust. You would definitely want to read this book because it is realistic. If you love history I would recommend that you read this book because it educates the reader about the Holocaust and Anne Frank. Carol Ann Lee makes this story come alive by detailed pictures and words. Dive into "Anne Frank and the Children of the Holocaust" and discover how fortunate we all are to live freely in a country.

Unfortunately, so many students today get their entire knowledge about the Holocaust entirely from Anne Frank's diary. With this book by Carol Anne Lee, students will get some of the background necessary to understand this event in history as well as Anne's diary.

Using other materials to document the historical background and to give a different view of events that actually happened, gives a clearer picture of Anne and the events that occurred. The book does give a clearer picture of Margot than we get from Anne's book. This helps explain some of Anne's feelings towards her sister when the actual diary is read. This is not a substitute for Anne's diary; but a supplement to it.

If a teacher had to choose one book to use to teach about the Holocaust, this would be an excellent choice.

Most people are familiar with Anne Frank's story, but in this book the author has added additional information about other children and teenagers who suffered during the Holocaust.
Lee does not shy away from the graphic details of everyday life in hiding, during the transports, and in the concentration camps. She describes the fear and horror of those times, but refrains from giving the reader more information than is age appropriate.
The bibliography is extensive, including standard Holocaust history books as well as interviews and unpublished memoirs. Sources of quotes are not always clear; a timeline and map would have been useful.
Literature for young adults often concludes with a hopeful note, in spite of overwhelming problems. A quote from Anne's diary ends this book: "I want to go on living, even after my death!" The author paints a picture of friendship, bravery, loyalty, and fortitude. She demonstrates why Anne's diary is a symbol of ultimate victory over evil.
Books like this will ensure that the one and a half million children who died in the Holocaust will not be forgotten. For those who question whether we need yet another book about Anne Frank, the answer is: decidedly yes.
For ages 12 and up.
Reviewed by Anne Dublin

Carol Ann Lee has made a bit of a career writing books on Anne Frank and the Frank family. As someone who considers himself a bit of an amateur Anne Frank scholar himself, I can respect this. Fortunately, Ms. Lee is a very engaging writer and does an excellent job with her material.

This time around, Ms. Lee uses the story of Anne and her family as a way to delve a bit more deeply into the events of the Nazi era. She sketches out Anne's story again but she also writes more about the anti-Jewish laws, the experience of the occupied countries and the function of the transit camps, concentration camps and death camps.

She also reaches further outside of the Frank's experience to pull in diaries, memoirs and interviews from other young people who lived (and died) during this period. Anne's diary remains one of the most powerful written expressions to survive that time but the use of this other material adds a different flavor to the prose. In some ways, it deepens the impact to hear the experiences of others in counterpoint to Anne's.

Which brings me back to a question I often ask myself: why bother with these biographies of Anne when her diary is such a strong document? Ms. Lee answers that question well with this book. Scholars today can help fill in the gaps not covered in Anne's diary and add color to her experience by highlighting it with other documents from the time. When the resulting book is as well-written and user friendly as Ms. Lee's, it makes fine additional reading once Anne's diary has been experienced.

This is the only AP Art History Review book the Art History teacher recommended. It is the best test prep book on the market and if you're taking the AP exam, you should really consider buying it. We're waiting for the AP exam results and hopefully it would prove its worth.

Students in the Atlanta area have found this book to be very helpful for preparation on the AP Art History exam. Adult friends with an interest in art history have bought the book and found that the book along with the 400 picture CD is a great resource.

These dedicated authors have produced a book that is a superior study aid and a reference for those who appreciate art history. Details regarding the classics are impressive and sample tests are well written. A must for all AP Art History students.

This book includes so much information and the tests are great because they give you a detailed description of every correct answer! I bought the book because my teacher wrote it but I'm reading it because it is a great review!

Wonderful book which gives superb documentation about the Toscanini NBC Symphony broadcasts and the Maestros years at NBC. However if someone is going to give an editorial review they should get their facts straight (whoever Edith Eisler is) - there was no NBC Symphony tour of Japan under Toscanini.

Most of what we know of the conducting of Arturo Toscanini comes from his recordings with the NBC Symphony, an orchestra formed by RCA for radio broadcasts and recordings from 1937-1954. As Frank points out in this excellent book, most of these recordings were made when Toscanini was in his 80's, and therefore perhaps not representative of his best work. This book tries to put these recordings in perspective by detailing and describing the NBC Broadcasts season by season. As Frank points out, some of Toscanini's best performances occured when the conductor was in front of an audience, where he was more relaxed. Frank gives a detailed season by season description of the NBC years, as well as complete program information. Also included is a complete (as possible) discography of both official and unoffical recordings. There is also a balanced discussion of the criticism and "hero worship" of the conductor in the intervening years. Other goodies: A complete list of NBC Symphony Personnel, a list of guest conductors and broadcasts, and a very interesting discussion about the "deconstructing" of the Toscanini image. After reading this book, I wanted to hear more of Toscanini's broadcast performances (and how about some of Guido Cantelli's broadcasts, also)!

This book may initially appeal to the specialist or the buff, but it is so well done that anyone interested in performance practice (or, of course, in Toscanini) should read it. An extremely sophisticated analysis of the maestro's NBC years and one that rounds out our understanding of Toscanini. Add it to your Haggin, the Sachs bio, and the old Spike Hughes book.

It's true that this book is really only for fans of Arturo Toscanini, but there are many of us. It provides information not otherwise available. (And with due respect to the review above by Edith Eisler, I am certain that there never was a tour of Japan by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and I am virtually certain that Toscanini never went to Japan to conduct any orchestra.) Mr. Frank is fair, musical, knowledgeable, and informative.

There are over two thousand books and articles published about Atlantis: so why the need for yet another? Unlike others on the topic, The Atlantis Encyclopedia offers less speculation and more emphasis on known facts gathered from geology, astronomy and other scientific disciplines. Ongoing research, international travel, and on-site explorations by the author gather the facts past and present, gathering plenty of evidence to point to the conclusion that Atlantis at least existed.

I really enjoyed this book and have used it as a reference item multiple times since I received it.

Everything you want to look up is inside, along with things you didn't know you wanted to look up. No longer can they say prove Atlantis existed. Now they have to prove it didn't.

"Of the estimated 2,500 books and magazine articles published about the lost civilization, The Atlantis Encyclopedia is the only one of its kind. It is an attempt to bring together all the known details of this immense, continually fascinating subject, as well as provide succinct definitions and clear explanations." - From the Atlantis Encyclopedia

Most books about the lost continent of Atlantis are largely theoretical. However, The Atlantis Encyclopedia is more fact oriented, focusing on areas such as geology, oceanography, and astronomy, as well as the numerous folk traditions around the world which preserve memories of a great flood. The exhaustive information presented in this book is the result of more than two decades of continuous study and international travel by the author. From Morocco's underground shrine to Britain's Stonehenge, seldom seen solar monuments in Japan's remote forests to a cannibal temple in Polynesia, Frank Joseph takes novice readers, specialists, and skeptics alike on an intensive journey through Atlantean civilization.

The Atlantis Encyclopedia-written in an alphabetic, encyclopedic format-also offers comprehensive information about the Pacific counterpart to Atlantis: the lost kingdom of Mu, also known as Lemuria. A few of the topics covered in this book:

* Viracocha, the early Inca culture-hero who "rose" from the depths of Lake Titicaca
* Balor, the king of the giant Sea People in Irish folklore
* Island of Jewels, the paradisiacal realm in Hindu myth. At the center of this island hidden by misty akasha, was a magnificent palace where all wishes were granted.
* Enki, the sea-god of Sumerian myth who was a pre-flood culture-bearer from Atlantis
* Numinor, J.R.R. Tolkien's version of Atlantis in Lord of the Rings. Tolkien claimed to have been plagued since childhood by nightmares he believed were past-life memories of the Atlantean catastrophe-nightmares also shared by his son. (Numinor was also known as Ele'na and Westernesse).
* Ragnarok, the Norse "Twilight of the Gods"
* Pleiades, also known as Atlantides, means "Daughter of Atlas". Greek scholar Diodoras Siculus wrote that the Pleiades were not originally mythic figures, but real women who married Atlantean culture bearers. Long after their deaths, they were regarded as divine, and commemorated as a star cluster.
* Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote about Atlantis in a 1928 serialization by The Saturday Evening Post called The Maracot Deep.

At 312-pages, this reference book also features 16 full-color photographs and images, as well as black-and-white photos interspersed throughout the text. Questions addressed in this book include:

* What was Atlantis?
* Where was it located?
* How long ago did it flourish?
* How was it destroyed?
* What became of its survivors?
* Have any remains of Atlantis ever been found?
* Will Atlantis ever be found?
* Did Atlantis have any impact on America?

The Atlantis Encyclopedia is a unique and valuable resource that doesn't aim to prove that the sunken capital actually existed. Yet, with all the evidence mustered on its behalf, even skeptics may conclude that there is SOMETHING factual behind this enduring, global legend.

This is the best adult urology atlas. It covers most of the basic urologic procedures and a well put together way. If you do surgery on the GU tract, this is a must have book.

This volume is an essential guide to every surgeon who practices urology. Also great stuff for residents in urology. A must-have.

This is an excellant book with very useful diagramatic and grapic details of operations and good descriptions of both old and new procedures. Most chapters have been written by pioneers in the field and there is a lot of practical advice added to make the book a valuable addition to the library of urologists and trainees alike. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to be in the library of all urological institutions and practitioners alike. The book is also reasonably affordable.

Truly one of the most successful volumes in the specialty of urology, the structure is well designed, the operations included cover a wide range of procedures, and most noticeable is the very high quality of the explanatory figures, sometimes by just browsing through them you get 80% of what to do... the text is well written and concise. You will find alternative approaches for many operations. It is impossible to gather all of the urological craft in one set, but this one succeeds in collecting a large chunk of it. I highly recommend it for all residents and urologists alike.

In the last weeks of the Reagan administration, clueless ex-congressman Charles Dingleman, dumped by his district's voters and by two ex-wives, is now floundering in a private sector law firm. A ray of hope arrives in the form of a possible appointment to the prospective Dukakis White House. But over lunch, Dingleman offends an over-reactive young associate, Judith Grust--first by leering at an underdressed woman, then unaccountably trying to recover via a piece of movie repartee that once worked out great between Broderick Crawford and Virginia Mayo. (If I were a dog and you were a steak, I wouldn't care, Dingleman remembers the line--"or something to that effect.") Dingleman's bungled rendition is actually even worse than that (I worry that if I were a mangy dog and you were roast beef. . .). Worse still is how Judith's ear memorializes it ("Something about raw meat").

She complains to an inept founding partner, whose reflex for putting out the fire is to lie to her that Dingleham knows he has a disorder and is getting treatment for it. Grust, though, is still haunted by the violation she's been through, and convinces herself that in the national interest she must forward the information to network news anchor Reynolds Mund. (The dull welfare reformer she's begun dating, while gazing at Judith's bare upper leg, agrees to make the actual phone call.) Dingleman is soon a jobless pariah, and enlists the blundering, high-priced publicity firm Big Tooth to restore his good name.

The locus of this firm brings into play a whole third-person world of losers and climbers, all fatally human, many of whom will eventually fail upward in what seems to be a sort of train-wreck historical dialectic. ("Put the lazy bastards to work is my thought," Dingleman eventually says about welfare reform, and the former liberal theorist he's talking to feels "a sort of primal agreement.") Everyone is basically in over his head; everyone but Dingleman bluffs having slightly more connections than he really does. Poor slobs are undone by their concealed masturbation fantasies--and in a different book we would feel that a brave, timely statement about forgiveness, hypocrisy and human nature might be made.

The book's only frustration is that Frank's comedy is so smart, one suspects this could have been just as funny and possibly more serious as well. The farce is all too believable, and the humanity Frank draws with his left hand is better than most of us could do with our right. But the book pulls up somewhat abruptly, in a world that bumbles forward without real breakthroughs or breakdowns.

Frank's voice is acid but somehow weirdly sympathetic. Each biographical sketch lingers on the perfect note of self-importance, each physical description contains the perfect repellant flaw. The Russian Expert Suzanne Smule "smiled a wonderful smile, and Hank understood her charm at once. She wore a dark green suit loose enough to hide her stocky body. She was also wearing a perfume he'd never smelled before, a mixture of lilac and olive oil, and he noticed a long scar along the base of her neck." A mediocre couple "had not had many serious conversations, although now and then they talked about having a child. Many of the people they saw at their offices had children, and sometimes, when they watched television, they would imagine how nice it would be to watch television with their child."

When Gorbachev visits Washington, the elderly lecher Alfred Schmalz tells Judith excitedly "that he'd seen the Russian outside the Soviet embassy and had never felt so hopeful about the future; he could imagine his grandson on a playground with little Russian children, jumping rope in a peaceful world."

In case the point has not been driven home, most, if not all, the characters are betting on plum jobs or profitable connections in the wrong candidate's administration.

Jeffrey Frank is a brilliant novelist specializing in acid portraits of a totally loveless world, one in which people bump into each other but never connect--either emotionally or sexually. In a Frank novel one always feels that one is observing the world through the wrong end of a telescope; the characters are infinitely distant from us, and from the narrator. We identify with these characters only at our own risk.

Frank has for some reason disowned his own early novel, *The Creep*, which I recall (very well) reading in high school, circa 1968. This novel is in the same mold; the only difference is in the specificity of the portrayal of the Washington D.C. lobbyist/think tank/legal milieu. But the utter alienation of the male characters, and the frigid but caustically funny style through which they are depicted, remains unchanged.

If you enjoyed, or were obsessed by, *The Creep*, check out this novel; it's like meeeting a dysfunctional friend, 30+ years later, and finding out where he's been.

In this period of anxious anticipation of the 2004 presidential campaign and general election, we can learn a great deal from those political campaigns of the past and that includes the late '80s. Or maybe we can't. I'm not sure.

Since Jeffrey Frank's earlier novel, "The Columnist," was a big hit at our house, not to mention our whole neighborhood -- okay, maybe the entire Washington, D.C. area -- we are really looking forward to reading his new book.

We would have done so already, but we're waiting for it to arrive in shipment from Amazon.com.

We gave it four stars, only because we haven't actually read it yet. Who knows? After reading it, maybe five stars. We'll see.

I lived in Washington D.C. once upon a time, but that --- or the fact that I was once married to a washed up politico -- has absolutely nothing to do with why I LOVED this hilarious novel. Well, perhaps a tiny bit. But personal experience of the various and dreadful games in the Nation's Capital, or even your basic lobbying law firm, isn't necessary in order to enjoy this wicked, wicked book. You'll scream with laughter. I did.