Powell Books

Not only is this book a no nonsense in-depth approach to Sitcom writing, it is obviously written with a great deal of knowledge acquired through a genuine love of the subject. The authors share their experience of actually having written Sitcoms and also provide us with the results of their detailed analysis of the structure of a successful script. It's also a very good read.

My dad bought me this book when I was nine years old. That was about 35 years ago. I still remember some of the lessons it taught me and relate them to my 7 year old. This is a great book to teach your child the fundamentals of the great game of baseball.

In this book the author goes into great detail on how to counsel youth. Youth in this society are more difficult to work with than other groups.

I loved Zinnia: How The Corn Was Saved! The book has a powerful poetic voice. The story is beautifully told and the colors are rich and vibrant. More stories like this please!!

This is one of my all-time favorite stories! The characters are so well written & the story is outstanding. The slave, Taita, who tells the story is an engaging character, and his devotion to Lostris, the daughter of his master, is heartwarming. The adventures these two have over their lifetimes are so much fun to read. There is also a lot of information about ancient Egyptian mythology, culture, etc. woven in so that you learn a lot while reading it. This is one I re-read a couple times a year and I never get tired of it - what a great movie it would make!

I read The Quest before I read River God. I thought the story of Taita & Lostris was captivating in Quest & I wanted to know the full story. Smith is an impecable history writer. You know that he's researching to the fullest extent before writing his tomes. I enjoyed the story of River God, but it took me a little longer to get into it than it took me in the Quest. I thought the development of Lostris was amazing & the other characters as well. I am ready to order the 7th Scroll!

Wonderful storyline that makes you feel you are with them on the journey. Who cares if it's not historically accurate - it's fiction. I'm looking forward to the reading the rest of the series.

I don't usually read fiction but every once in awhile it is good to try something different. After having this book recommended to me by several Wilbur Smith fans I found the time to read it. I am glad I did. It is a long book but Wilbur can sure transport you back in time to another world. Well worth reading.

As a person that loves historical fiction, I was intrigued by the title, when it said that it was a novel set in Ancient Egypt.There seems to be so few books that are written in this time period.
I picked it up at my local library, one day after work ,and decided that I would read a couple of pages to see if I wanted to check it out or not.I ended up reading three chapters, before I could pull myself away. This was a book that was next to impossible to put down.
It is a story of Ancient Egypt, told through the eyes of a eunuch slave and the girl (who would become a future queen)that he is sworn to protect. It is the story of someone who sees the rise, fall and eventual rebirth of the Egyptian Empire and the part that he played to help shape it. The hero, Taitha ,goes to any length to protect two lovers, sways the opinions of a Pharaoh, witnesses the Egyptian war with the Hyskos, lives with an Ethiopian king and much more. The main point of the story that was so moving to me was, throughout all of the lies and the manipulation and power struggles, Taitha never loses his humanity. He never loses his compassion, he never loses sight of the fact that his duty is to the woman that he has sworn his whole life to, he never strays from undying devotion and love for the people that mean everything to him. Taitha sacrifices everything, even his own personal feelings, to save and protect his Queen. I have never read any Wilbur Smith books before. This was my first one, but I will have to say that this novel brings to life the world of the Ancients, stirs the emotions and leaves the reader wanting more. A rare and dazzling entertainment that I did not want to end.

After reading The Truth About Forever, I backtracked to Sarah Dessen's second published novel, Someone Like You. Thinking back on this, I probably should have at least waited a day before plowing into more Dessen books, because I couldn't help making comparisons and switching so quickly between first person books can be disorienting. Of course, that didn't stop me in the least.

Someone Like You is very much an early novel, filled with firsts for Halley and her best friend, Scarlett. First relationships, first sexual encounters, first parties...right down to first pregnancies. This legion of firsts quickly pile up as an obstacle course for Halley and Scarlett's friendship, testing it to its limits as lifelong best friends switch roles and navigate through high school life with a baby on the way. Scarlett is the bold one, and Halley is the shy one, both suffering through reversals of very unexpected proportions, and while their circumstances shove them into different roles they are still very much pressing on each other and depending on each other at the same time. Halley is going through her first relationship with bad boy Macon, the best friend of Scarlett's unborn baby's deceased father (that, is quite a mouthful), and feeling the pressures of giving in to his relentless need for sex. Scarlett, with enough experience behind her to know better, stands as Halley's obvious moral compass, much to everyone's distress. When things start to come apart, the baby is on its way, and friendship is certainly the one thing that is going to keep them both on their feet.

This isn't as well done as The Truth About Forever, with a rushed ending only the miracle of birth can supply. Halley and Macon's relationship is left teetering on a cliff of will they/won't they, leaving it up to the readers as to where Halley stands on the issue. The book is mainly Scarlett and Halley, as it should be, and their new addition to the party. Which is just fine, just not as satisfying as it could have been in the end.

Have you ever had a friend who cared so much about you and would do anything for you? Well that's what the relationship between the main character (Halley) and her best friend (Scarlett).
Halley and Scarlett have been best friends since Elementary School, and now they are teenagers struggling through high school. With Halley getting a new boyfriend and the death of Scarlett's boyfriend there is a lot of drama surrounding the town of Lakeview. But there is quite a surprise that will keep you on the edge of your seat. This realistic-fiction book will take you for a full roller coaster ride.
I thought this book was good. It wasn't a book that you knew what was going to happen. It wasn't too wordy where your tongue would get twisted; there were enough words for you to visualize and not overwhelm you. I would recommend this book for young adults. It has situations that teens deal with today and I think they would make a good connection with the book. I also liked that the book was a good length, it wasn't too short or too long. It was just right.
The only thing I didn't like about the book was the summary on the back of the book. It gave away too much information, which ended up ruining the big surprise of the book. So if you were to read the book, which I highly recommend, then don't read the back of the book you will enjoy it more.
Overall I thought Sarah Dessen did a good job writing the book. So if you're a teeny bopper looking for a good book to read then read Someone Like You!

Love this book. Sarah Dessen is one talented writer. The story is captivating, truthful, and realistic. Funny, sad, and all together great!

Just one more book that I've added to my "Favorite Book Ever" list!
I did cry at the end, as I usually do with any good book. =]

I wanted to be moved by this story about a girl supporting her best friend through a difficult time, but the main character Halley was whiny and self-involved, surpassed in the annoying category only by her clueless harpy of a psychologist mom. Everything from the bad boy love interest to the climatic prom night was cliched. The author would have done much better to focus on Halley's strong and interesting pregnant best friend Scarlett.

Seriously, this guy churns out a book every 4 years cause he does his research. Add to that the fact he is an exceptional writer. Perfect guy to write about this historic meltdown. Hard to rate your favorite books but remember how much I enjoyed reading it two years later. What a blast of a read (tragic story though). After reading the book I became so interested in the Enron debacle, that I actually skipped class and drove to houston (two years ago) to watch Fastow get cross-examined during Skilling and Lay's trial.

So yes I fully reccomend and endorse this book. Buy it and enjoy!

Conspiracy of Fools is the story of Enron, from beginning to collapse, researched and presented in excruciating detail. It's a horror story of greed, incompetence, arrogance, and willful ignorance. And it's a cautionary tale depicting the importance of accounting. It's also thought-provoking, particularly with regard to the contradictory nature of American business--what's good for the actual business isn't necessarily what's good for the stockholders, and vice versa.

The first quarter or so of the book, I spent a lot of time flipping back to the the cast of characters in the front of the book, and being frustrated by the way it jumped between characters and POVs. After I became familiar with the major players, it read much more smoothly.

The other thing that drove me nuts for quite a while was that so many scenes were described with precise dates, sometimes even down to the minute. I kept expecting those times to be significant in some way, but they never were. I eventually realized that it was supposed to be proof of how accurate the research was, but I just found it distracting.

There's more detail than I expected, but in this kind of book, I appreciated that--it felt like I got a clearer picture of not only what happened, but why, and how it was allowed to happen.

Other than that, it was fascinating, and horrifying. Reading it was like watching a series of train wrecks, or a horror movie where you're screaming at the bimbo not to go up the stairs, but she does anyway. I'm glad I read it.

As a 56 year old very successful business owner of 30 years, I always looked in awe at these 40 year old CEOs and CFOs of major publicly held corporations. How did these guys learn so much in such a short period of time? Are they actually that much smarter than I am? Apparently NOT! The only difference between us is that I could never match their levels of arrogance, greed, stupidity and total lack of ethics. Welcome to the world of big business.

As tragic as the ENRON situation is, what transpired behind the scenes was so incredulous, I found myself laughing out loud. The fact that they thought they could get away with some of these schemes was astounding. The fact that they got away with them as long as they did is a tribute to the stupidity of the supporting staff around them. This book should be required reading for any college grad going into the business world.

It was most interesting to get a glimpse into the personal life as well as the unethical business practices of the executives.

This book gives sobering data, while reading like a best-selling mystery--quite the feat!

The book is particularly relevant when we fit the story of Enron into the larger picture: Geo. W. Bush's longtime personal friendship with Enron head Ken Lay; Bush's own businesses in the 1980s--Arbusto and Spectrum 7--also collapsing shortly after HE sold out HIS personal stock; numerous other financial giants coincident with Enron (eg., Arthur Anderson, Tyco, Worldcom, etc.) demonstrating the same fiscal irresponsibility; this pattern repeated yet again in the recent (2008) Bear Stearns debacle.

Do you want to understand the mechanisms by which greed and corruption flourish? This book gives a detailed view of the process. I was continually astonished as I read. But then, I always am. (People sometimes accuse me of being cynical, but I can honestly reply, "To the contrary! I'm constantly amazed!")

A great companion book to Pigs at the Trough : How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America. We can't say we weren't told....

Doni Tamblyn is author of Laugh and Learn: 95 Ways to Use Humor for More Effective Teaching and Training and The Big Book of Humorous Training Games (Big Book of Business Games Series)

Book Review
The worst Book Ever
By ME

The Book Danny The Champion Of The World by Roald Dahl was horrible. It was not intriguing at all. The story was about a boy (Danny) and his father. They were a rich family. Danny had a very good life. He is the youngest master car mechanic ever, his dad was his best friend. What more could he want.... right? Then Danny discovered his father was keeping something from him & he seeks to find out the secret.

Danny is very very sneaky. He's sweet but not at all trustworthy. I (personally) would not ever trust him being alone. In the beginning of the book I really trusted him. But not now that I've gotten to know the character. Danny has blond hair. He is about 13 years old. He is an only child and has no mother. His mother had pasted away when he was a baby. Then a couple years later... well quite a few years later he learns the secret.

That secret that he knew his father was keeping from him. I'm not going to tell you the secret but lots of people get involved especially Mr. Hazel.

I (personally) dislike all books, but I would have too say that this was by-far the worst book I've ever read. The writing in it was horrible. If you don't believe me that's fine , read it for yourself but to me it was the worst book I've ever read.

Danny and his father live in a little caravan but they have a big secret.
Have your parents ever kept a secret from you? Well I bet they have once or twice because Danny's father has a big one. STOMP STOMP STOMP, Danny's father steps quietly into Mr.Hazell`s woods looking for something when Danny's father breaks his leg and figures something has to be done! You might believe in good and evil, if you read this book. I give the book five stars because I love adventure.

Do you like stories about truthful little boys vs. mean,fat men that are extremely rich ? Danny is very honest and has no bad secrets, Mr.Hazell, his neighbor, is a fat man who is very mean. If you want to find out how Danny gets revenge on Mr.Hazell and about what Danny is the champion of, read the book now.I liked the book because the story is full of mystery and action.

One of the lesser-known works of the late Roald Dahl, the author behind Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, Danny the Champion of the World is the delightfully fantastical account of a young boy and his father taking on a small patch of tyranny and emerging in snickering triumph.

Danny lives with his fun-loving father in a small rural caravan in England, helping with the family service station and soaking up Dad's country wisdom. Along with the craft of vehicle repair, Danny learns to find adventure using everyday objects. The pair creates all types of toys, from kites and boomerangs to "fire balloons" and stilts.

One night, Danny wakes during the night to find his father missing. Though his father comes home safe, Danny's life will never be the same.

Out spills a secret about not only his father, but many of the townspeople he grew up knowing. Soon Danny has hatched a plan to carve out his own place in the history of this fantastic secret.

Dahl is known for his ability to delight audiences of all ages. Like Charlie and James, this work reflects his ability to see through young eyes. Danny experiences life, from listening to his father's bedtime stories to sinking his teeth into a delicious meat pie, with the thrilled awe of a child.

Dahl's descriptions of people, particularly the not-so-nice varieties, are hilarious. One of Danny's teachers is described as having "fiery carrot-colored hair and a little clipped carroty mustache and a fiery temper. Carroty-colored hair also sprouted out of his nostrils and his earholes." A childish word like "earholes" thrown in with the vivid description of "Captain Lancaster" is a nice touch.

The book features illustrations by Quentin Blake, who provided drawings for many of Dahl's other works, as well. Though simple in form, the illustrations are a nice compliment to the story. The pictures of Captain Lancaster and of Mr. Victor Hazell, the story's primary villain, are particularly nice.

Danny will appeal to anyone who likes a bit of adventure in everyday life. The book, at just over 200 pages, is probably best for readers ages nine and up. The tale itself is good for anyone who's old enough to hear it read aloud, perhaps as a nightly installment of bedtime stories.

I really can't add much more than that! It really is one of his best! The love story between the father and son is truly wonderful. And, since there is a question of "to steal" or "not to steal" , it is great for springboarding family discussions.

Well, I kind of liked Colin Powell once. I kinda don't anymore. The book was ... dull. The same old same old - Horatio Alger type stuff. I bought the book because I thought that Colin might be going someplace and I wanted a glimpse at his philosophy. After his stint in Republican politics his future in that area looks pretty dim.
He was a soldier and he has the soldier mentality. This book was probably designed to put him on his political career. I liked Swartzkoff's book much better. What happened to Swartzkoff anyway?

CP did himself a diservice when he chose whomever to help him write this. I was completely surprised how bad the writing was. CP has an interesting story, but his author fails him. In the Army we would call this good initiative, poor execution. Terribly underwritten.

In the book Powell states that minorities are under represented in elite forces aka Rangers, Special Forces, etc. because of institutional racism. That is a total lie, and it is racism on his part. I began in the Army as an enlisted soldier and retired as an officer after 20+ years. The only racism I experienced was when my African American squad leader took care of all of the other African Americans in my squad and platoon and gave me the crappest and worst details because I was white.

Besides that experience, after much experience in the Army I have never seen a more racially fair organization in my life. If there was every fairness and opportunity for minorities, it is certainly in the Army. There is a lot to dislike about the Army like ego maniacs allowed to run loose and having stupid people in charge of you and utterly ridgid thinkers, but the Army did, from my perspective, an excellent job with fairness to everyone with regard to color. I also served from the squad level to the platoon level to company level as an enlisted soldier and an officer, and I served at the battalion level and brigade level as an officer. I have been a few places and seen and done a few things if you are unsure about my validity.

So, it seriously surprises me that CP said this. I think he was making a cheap political excuse to curry favor or work out an old grudge. By the way, after I left my unit, my squad leader got caught cheating on his wife with another African American squad leader, and his wife left him. I am sure he go into more trouble than that, but at least there was some justice.

I read the book and had to get the CD set for my husband's aunt. She loves to read non-fiction, patriotic American historical insights, etc. She cannot see now and longed for such things. She is a huge Powell fan (as am I) and wanted to share his story with her. Colin Powell is a hero and I have nothing but respect for the man and what he has done for this country! When he left the State Department, it was truly a sad, sad day.

This book is written and read with intellect and interest that will keep you listening from beginning to end.

This is a great book and an inspirational story of what one can accomplish in America if one has the drive. Powell was born from two poor Jamaican immigrants and rose, quickly, to the highest uniform office in America, and took some of the top political posts (or was offered them), though he wrote this before he became Sec of State. Looks like a volume two would be a good idea. After reading this my respect for Powell has grown. He served under five presidents, top posts under four of them. It is an amazing story of an amazingman.

I read biographies of key officials as a means of trying to understand how they make decisions, and on what basis of fact or fancy they make decisions.

Colin Powell is a great man, and I hope he returns as Secretary of State under a transpartisan team. He was destroyed by Dick Cheney and his own confusion of loyalty versus integrity.

Here is the sentence, on page 293, that made my day:

when he was Military Assistant to then Sectary of Defense Casper Weinberger, he preferred the Early Bird with its compendium of newspaper stories to the "cream of overnight intelligence" which was delivered to the Secretary of Defense by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) courier each morning.

See also:
Preparing America's Foreign Policy for the 21st Century
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
The Price of Loyalty : George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them

A great novel in the zombie/vampire genre, with a solitude-induced dystopia akin to Matheson's I Am Legend and Brook's World War Z.

Some may see the sci-fi concepts as far fetched, specifically the triffids themselves, but the overall story congeals well bringing about stressful situations and sparking philosophical questions regarding morality, social convention, principles, and what would be the appropriate type of organization in the chaotic aftermath of pandemic blindness.

While I stand by the reviews that state the excellence of this story, and the skill of the author, intending purchasers should know that this is an *edited* edition - something I didn't pick up on until reading along with a BBC unabridged reading of the book.
Example - in Chapter 1 when Bill Masen encounters the doctor in the corridors of the hospital - this has been removed from this edition.

The fact this is an edited version needs to be made clear to intending purchasers

"The Day of the Triffids" was for many years my favorite sci-fi novel; afterwards it was replaced in that honor place by Dune and Hyperion.
I've read this novel when I was a teenager in the mythical Argentinean sci-fi magazine "Mas Alla", it was published there as the main story of the inaugural number. I've treasured my collection for more than 40 years.
"The Day of the Triffids" still stands in my all-time best novels list and I've reread it once every couple of years.

It is a typical product of the '50 immersed in the "Cold War", but with a forceful story line, exploring a post catastrophe world.
The drama evolves smoothly, griping you up to the last page; it has a somewhat melancholic background, our known world fading into dust and a new one emerging from the ashes in a pitiless confrontation with the Triffids of the title.
It is a novel that fifty years after it was written still catch your interest and keep you going on.
In sci-fi not to be dated is a commendation.

If the reader wants to have a vivid picture of London in a state similar to this book descriptions I encourage he/she to see the movie "28 Days Later".

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to all sci-fi fans and general public too!
Reviewed by Max Yofre

Not much I can add that others haven't.
This is an excellent book, which, because it deals with human nature, surely has to remain timeless.
In the aftermath of the comets, the loneliness of people who are literally left in the dark is tangible and help to make this novel remain in your mind long after you've finished reading it.

The part the triffids play in this chaos is remarkably easy to imagine, especially knowing the scientific research that is carried out now into genetic engineering. The triffids, although dangerous, are tolerated and managed because of their useful oil. If some degenerative diseases could be eradicated by cultivating a deadly plant...would we?

I really enjoyed the way Wyndham makes us think about human behaviour and how hard it is to unlearn. The ideas on what to tell future generations and the references to disasters in the ancient world I found really thought provoking.

Somehow, an astronomical event has caused the overwhelming majority of the population to become blind.

If that wasn't bad enough, mobile, dangerous plans called Triffids
are able to take advantage of the disdavantage. Without sight humans
are extremely vulnerable to these predators.

The narrator avoided blindness, by being in a hospital with bandaged eyes.

From there, we have an examination of this disaster scenario, and what would happen.