Spencer Books

Catherine Spencer's story of two so unlike people, Mike D'Alessandro and Camille Whitfield, drawn together is a super tale. Her plot is so evocative of the complex world we share. Mike and Camille are irresistibly drawn together by an intense passion they cannot deny. But Mike cannot tell Camille of the real bond they share. How Mike finally reaches out and claims Camille's heart is a stirring sstory of romance and adventure.

Catherine Spencer describes in exciting detail the joys these two lovers share. Try as they may, they cannot still their passion for each other. Yet only slowly do they come to understand how much more they share. The wide embrace of their love includes compassion for the less fortunate and caring understanding for the persons who have failed them.

This is a story that satisfies our longing for the warmth of caring people and the delights of passionate love. I savored the strength of Mike, a man willing to pursue the woman he desires and to go after the son he was denied. The awakening of Camille as she learns to follow her heart is so exciting as Catherine Spencer describes the intense pleasure Camille finally experiences as a full woman.

The final chapter shows us Camille as a strong, mature woman aware of the romance life holds and ready to choose her future.

Catherine Spencer again has given of her superb imagination and sensitive understanding of human nature. D'Alessandro's Child is a romance to read and to treasure.

This tightly written story is a keeper. Catherine Spencer's talent for weaving heart-rending suspense with sizzling passion had me wishing the book would never end. The plot twists are excellent, the characters well-defined and far more skillfully drawn than those found in most other Presents. No snarling hero or silly heroine here, but two sympathetic people caught in an impossible predicament, with no easy way out. An emotionally satisfying read and Five Stars all the way.

D'Alessandro's Child is one of Catherine Spencer's best books. The characters are much more complex than those in many category romances. The heroine is immature in some ways but when push comes to shove, she certainly stands up for herself, both with her odious parents and with Michael. She shows much growth in maturity during the story. From the beginning, her love for her child shows that she is not a woman anyone can walk over, no matter how it seems at first. Later, she takes the initiative in many situations. She comes across as a real person, not a cardboard, generic heroine. Michael also is very human and real, emotionally torn by the dilemma in which he finds himself. He shows great kindness in his treatment of his ex-wife to whom he owes nothing. The reader can feel the conflicting emotions within him as he tries to do the right thing. Altogether, an emotional and uplifting story.

The book motivates you to express yourself artisticly and release emotions you don't have to answer to anyone for. An insight into viewing art unlike you have previously. A deeper understanding of the artist and what they have created through their pain and repair of emotions.

This is a very interesting book and theory. A help along the road to understanding yourself and what motivates the behavior of other people.

I was truly amazed and enlightened by the material presented in this book. It takes psychoanalysis to a new level and brings the reader into the real lives of many different characters who experianced incredible healing through art expression.Reading a book like this is a real joy! It gives insight to this totally new and innovative form of psychoanalysis with a language that can be understood and appreciated by any reader. I really reccomend diving into this one!

Monique Doyle Spencer writes with humor and grace about a subject that many of us have difficulty dealing with . . . I highly recommend this book for all of those with loved ones dealing with cancer. You won't regret it....

We all say, "Call me if you need anything." Monique Doyle Spencer's book gives the tips on how to help someone through tough times. I am grateful to finally have the answers that make it so plain on how to help others.
She also provides understandable information about cancer. I highly recommend this book for everyone.

Each and every one of us knows someone who has dealt with cancer. A family member, a friend, a neighbor. Monique Doyle Spencer, once again, speaks about the unspeakable . . . what exactly can we do to help someone with cancer? It's an enjoyable read, and also a very useful and helpful resource. Do a favor for your friend, neighbor, or family member by buying and/or gifting this book. You'll feel better for it, as will they. As far as I am concerned, Monique has given each of us a tremendous gift by writing this book.

Dave Spencer's soft, low-key style gives the drama of this book even more punch. It is refreshing to read a book that captures your attention with real characters who manage to survive the usual perils of life without being degenerate, without murdering, raping or worse. It is a clear snapshot of life for young people in today's America. It will make a great movie!

How I Became A Fisherman Named Pete tells the tale of one young man's path in life and how he moulded it himself with the help of the various colorful characters he encounters on his journey. From tragedy and confusion to contentment and inner peace, Tom, the book's main character, almost leaves an imprint on your conscience as to how anybody in this life can overcome adversity and still find true happiness. Spencer has succeeded in weaving a beautiful piece of fiction that is intelligent, rich in narrative, grammatically flawless and most importantly, engrossing. As debut novels go, it is incredibly impressive and reads like a novel written from a seasoned professional. Through his skilful observations and painstakingly careful research, he has managed to create a clear and vivid story that successfully portrays each town, city and character in superb detail. Being from the UK and unaccustomed to this part of America, this was a great help to me. I want from my books passion and detail, heart and emotion and this qualifies on each level. Well done David, I hope that you go from strength to strength and reap the rewards and accolades that any book of this quality deserves. I anticipate your next novel with hunger and impatience. Highly recommended.

Being a big fan of the wandering spirits of Richard Russo's stories, I had high hopes for this story of Tom, a detached loser trying to find his way. I'm glad to say my expectations were met and in some cases surpassed by this briskly paced first novel by Mr. Spencer.

The storytelling is vivid and efficient. The characters are almost painfully real and engaging. Most importantly, the plot is inventive and surprising.

This is the best first novel I've read since Michael Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburg and I wouldn't be surprised to see the same great things, including a Pulitzer, in the future for this new author.

I had never rebuilt any engine before tackling my 1954 Ford NAA. This book was invaluable in stepping me through every system - what was important and what was not so critical. Not only does it go through every engine components in detail, it covers the auxilary systems as well such as the fuel and cooling systems. It does more than tell you the "what", it also tells you the "why" as well and is filled with sidebar tips and tricks on how to do it right the first time. Since that engine, I have now rebuilt two Ford 8N engines and am currently working on a 1939 9N - I still pull this book out constantly.

I don't write reviews often - this book is worth getting the word out on. You simply will not be dissapointed acquiring this book for your referernce and will get much more than your monies worth.

Mr. Yost has done a very good job of covering very diverse subject matter. Engine designs are so different in the details that most engine books cover just one model or manufacturer. I found all of the information in the book very interesting and will use most of it between the John Deere I just completed and the Ford I need to do soon.

Between this book and your model-specific service manual, even an inexperienced mechanic should be able to complete a tractor engine.

This book is the essential companion to your tractor manual for rebuilding your tractor engine. Great descriptions, good photos, all the tips and tricks you need to rebuild your engine start to finish. Helpful ideas about when to send parts out for machining or refurbishing. I couldn't have done my engine without this. Highly recommended, best money you will spend.

For anyone who wants to understand the South and particularly the southern state that has in many ways represented both the worst and the best of the region, Elizabeth Spencer's LANDSCAPES OF THE HEART is an absolute must-read. I know nothing except perhaps Harry Crews' poignant autobiography, A CHILDHOOD, that approaches it in realizing both a southern world and an insider's intimate experience of that world. Spencer's nuanced prose and her ability to recreate her childhood in Carrollton, Mississippi, makes it hard to put her memoir aside. By the last page, we too have become Mississippians of a certain time and place. Don't miss this fine book.

I've spent a professional and avocational lifetime studying the literature and culture of the South, where I was born and where I have chosen to live. One of the things that has puzzled me most about this region has been Mississippi, a state that lies just across the Mississippi River from my home state, but in its culture and attitudes is far distant from the world in which I grew up and have lived. Alabama, Georgia, East Texas, the Carolinas, Tennessee---all are distinctive. But Mississippi strikes me as a world apart even in the Deep South, a world of its own, inward-looking even at the dawn of a new century.

And yet the state probably has produced more highly creative and accomplished people, per capita, than any other southern state. Forget for a moment the writers. Consider Jim Henson, father of the Muppets; Elizabeth Hazen, a pioneer chemist who discovered the first fungicidal antibiotic; Leontyn Price, whose full soprano voice changed the Metropolitan Opera; Craig Claiborne, longtime food critic for The NY Times who changed a nation's attitude toward food; Oprah Winfrey, who created a unique career; Walter Payton, Brett Farve, Red Barber in sports; Sela Ward and James Earl Jones, actors; Shelby Foote, the historian. Consider the musicians: Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Buffett, Bo Diddley, Faith Hill and Tammy Wynette, to name only a few. And then there are the writers: Wm Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Willie Norris, Elizabeth Spencer, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, Walker Percy, for instance. And they are still coming. It is simply impossible to imagine Southern and American culture without these and many other creative Mississippians.

What is there about the state, which in so many ways still looks inward and backward, that accounts for the astonishing achievements of so many of its citizens?

Elizabeth Spencer's brilliant memoir helped me understand the world of Mississippi and its effects on bright, creative people as nothing else has ever done, including Faulkner's powerful fiction, almost all of it set in his home state.

In a prose both familiar and evocative, Spencer pulls us into the life of a little girl growing up in a state that has no real city, that was made up of little towns where everyone had a clear identity and connections in other little towns all over the state, generally blood ties. We meet her mother's people, the McCains (John McCain is a cousin), whose homeplace plantation Teoc is run by a beloved uncle and inhabited by the whole family at one time or another. We encounter her life as a perceptive child in a home ordered by rules established so long ago they seemed Biblical. The churches, the old ladies and old gentlemen whose very lives are guiding lights, the school, downtown, the black people who were both a part of and apart from her world, the old houses, the ambitious father, the loving mother who assured she imbibed the social mores of Carrollton, the books that were as real as people, the grand old houses that are totems, the child who grows up in this world---Spencer weaves all the threads and nuances of the town's and her own life in it into a vivid, complex, and completely unforgettable whole. For the most of the book, we live with her in Carrollton, Mississippi.

And then we take the first tentative steps away from it---to college in Jackson, Mississippi, where Eudora Welty lives across the street; then a step farther away, to graduate school at Vanderbilt to study English, where she met people like Donald Davidson, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, and Cleanth Brooks, who encouraged her ambition to write. The earliest stages of her writing, her time on the Mississippi Coast, the nervous collapse she experiences, NYC and her eventual two-year writing fellowship in Italy give Spencer a personal independence she relished but which she believed entirely consistent with her home in Mississippi.

She learned it was not. While she was in Italy, she and her mother had maintained a steady and detailed correspondence. Spencer was working on the novel that would become "The Knock At the Back Door," rooted in an experience with a black servant who had been brutally beaten by a white man for what his wife had regarded as an insult and who had come to the Spencers' backdoor for help. As a child Elizabeth had been shocked by the sight of the familiar woman and her battered face, her mother's tending her wounds, her father's assuring her a way out of town and away from danger. In Italy, she was mildly surprised that while writing about the "Mississippi small-town life, filled with home voices, home manners, characters whose thoughts and lives were centered there and nowhere else...these things came clearer to me from a distance than they might have done at home." Yet that writing and her contacts with her family had also assured her of her place in that world.

She arrived home in the summer following the brutal murder of Emmit Till, a Chicago teenager visiting Mississippi kin who had made the mistake of whistling at a white woman in a country store, whose husband and brother had beaten the boy to death for what was seen as a clear insult.

Spencer's father had always "been forward-looking about racial matters," had subscribed to Hodding Carter's Liberal Greenville newspaper, and had encouraged the education and ambition of Negroes who worked for him. In the climate following the murder, however, all he could say was, "We have to keep things in hand." Order was the important thing. In the tension that accompanied the event, her mother vacillated but recurred to old notions: "Something ought to be done to those men," she would say and then add, "that boy may have been just fourteen but he was grown, he was a man, and he shouldn't have been looking at any white woman." After two days, Spencer was encouraged to leave. In time she would verbalize what she could not admit at the time, "You don't belong down here anymore."

The memoir takes her back to Europe and to England, where she married an Englishman she had met earlier; their years in Montreal; and their eventual removal to North Carolina and the South. But it is the brilliantly realized intimate life in Mississippi that is its glory.

I don't know why I was so late coming to this wonderful memoir. I will read it again and again. I recommend it highly for readability, pure pleasure, and understanding.

The author gives you a feeling of what it was like to grow up in the South, to be a citizen of that time and place, but to move away enough to see it in perspective. Many mentioned names and relationships useful for genealogy, too.

Miss Spencer's vivid comparisons of life in North and South Mississippi are especially interesting to those of us who have made this migration; she writes of the beauty of church names on the Mississippi Coast ("Our Lady of the Gulf," etc.) and how the construction of Interstate 10 changed things forever. Her description of the rustic conditions faced by Junior college teachers of the 1940s is revealing and a rather sad commentary on a system that took a long time to improve. The award she will receive in October from the Mississippi Library Association is much deserved.

My personal Trainer Joe DiAngelo, recommended me this book.
I lost over 25 lbs following his training program and following awesome reciepes from Latin Lover Lite. I still feel in heaven when I am on this diet.

It is easy to see why Chef LaLa is quickly being recognized by the food industry as the no nonsense authority on Latin Cuisine. Her passion for this delicious food and her own incredible style make cooking "Latino" both easy and exciting for the novice and experienced alike

THE DETAILED PICTURES WITH EASY TO FOLLOW RECIPES MADE THIS BOOK SO EASY TO USE. THANK YOU CHEF LALA FOR TRUE REPRESENTATION OF HEALTHY LATIN FOOD THAT KEEPS ME WANTING MORE !!

Completed this book two summers back during a quick study of the Horn of Africa---and as an arm-chair law buff found the author's work extraordinary in scope and import. Instead of the usual soft racism that derides much of African culture and heritage, Mr. Van Notten offers real alternatives to traditional Western legal remedies/methods---with added benefits of examining the legal/economic constraints of Somali custom/law. A first rate read and highly recommend to those interested in innovative alternatives to traditional Western jurisprudence.

Students of legal anthropology learn the phrase "customary law" early in their training. But seldom is it accompanied by nuanced understanding. Law of the Somalis fundamentally alters this default. Generations of legal anthropologists working in colonial Africa devoted themselves (usually with the best intentions) to "codifying" customary law, never pausing to ask whether customary law might possess advantages wholly antithetical to "legislated" law.
The late Michael van Notten, a Dutch-educated lawyer "adopted" into Somali society, has written a "brief" (using the Somali case) on behalf of the proposition that customary law succeeds in fulfilling natural law demands for justice in ways superior to law created by systems of representative democracy. Legislated law of necessity disenfranchises the minority (who failed to elect their representatives), while customary law, because it focuses on disputes situationally, and relies on customary legal principles not unbending statutes for solutions, is better suited to respecting the interests of all sides. A major factor in van Notten's argument in favor of the Somali example is his demonstration of how customary law performs in its intensely competitive environment. In order to preserve its general acceptance, customary law must provide non-governmental means whereby people can complain if they feel their rights were violated.
The name given to this customary law system is kritarchy, that is, a system of rule distinguished from monarchy and oligarchy, by its reliance on "judging through principle." Kritarchy rests not on political institutions, but rather simply on the rule of law.
In a world where "failed-state" can be a buzzword precursor to outside intervention, issues presented by nations relying on customary law are far from academic. Van Notten's polemic is thus also timely - and far from an abstract contemplation. To the contrary, based on firsthand experience the book urges that a customary law foundation, such as found in Somalia, provides an ideal basis for establishment of a Free Port dedicated to commercial relations with the highest regard for natural law property rights. The United Nations has poured billions of dollars, thus far without evident success, into the cause of re-establishing a Somali central government, a proposition anathema to the customary law systems of Somalia's clans. Van Notten, on the other hand, sees opportunity to vindicate an approach to law consistent with older forms honoring sage leadership and counsel without the power to coerce and tax.
The readability and relative brevity of the text highly recommend Law of the Somalis for classroom use. It fits comfortably alongside, and is a refreshing addition to, the scholarly tradition reflected in such classic ethnographic legal-political titles as, Tswana Law (I. Schapera), The Cheyenne Way (K. Llewellyn and E.A. Hoebel), and The Judicial Process among the Barotse (M. Gluckman).
Howard J. De Nike, J.D., Ph.D., Instructor, Anthropology Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.

This book deserves the full five stars because it demonstrates dynamically that sustenance and better, and freedom, order and peace, are fully possible in a system of local, family/clan, traditional governance in its multiple manifestations over a fairly wide territory without the "assistance" or burden of a centralized ruler controlling any and all aspects of the economy, society or life of the citizenry or its institutions. And it does so in a readily accessible manner in the writing style and cogent illustrations of the customary law as applied. This pertains to the principal author, the editor and one other contributor.

The justice system in northern Somalia, Somaliland, works as a common law, less formal than the English common law, but formalized in its procedures and precedents. It uses (by retainer) recognized judges or arbiters who receive apprentice-like training, experience on the job, and are selected on the basis of reputation for a track record of wise rulings. This pertains in civil and in criminal matters.

The greatest flaw in the rules, not in the system, is the lack of absolute property rights. Common grazing ground has fairly comprehensive rules as to how it may be used, thus avoiding the tragedy of the commons. But it can't be sold which is a considerable constraint on achieving prosperity. Individually owned real property has similar restraints; it can be sold only within the clan. This also constrains prosperity.

Somaliland does immensely better that the southern regions of Somalia where repeated efforts to reestablish central government, and the fear of such, have encouraged "war-lordism" and have discouraged economic betterment.

This system of justice appears to have been the general modus operandi across most of Africa before colonization. It is remarkable that so much of the system has survived a couple centuries of colonization and several decades of tyrannical dictatorships, both very centralizing forces.

To this observer this system demonstrates the validity of the libertarian notion that man can govern himself better at the individual and local level than he can be governed by the central state, federated or otherwise.

We knew them as "Uncle Z and Aunt Nunu", the houseparents of our boarding house in Bangkok, Thailand. I and my older sister lived there with a bunch of other missionary kids while we attended school in the late '60's. In this book, on page 235, that was me and two of the guys raiding the fridge (well, one of the times it got raided), and my sister and some of the other girls locking Uncle Z and Aunt Nunu out of the house.

Spencer Zan (rhymes with "Kahn") was born and raised in the 1920's, a well- educated Christian of the Karen (pronounced "ka-REN") State of Northern Burma, in the very last days of the British Empire. Burma won independence from Britain after WWII but the Burmese military immediately toppled the new democratic government. The junta renamed the country Myanmar and commenced generating the long series of political and humanitarian crises that shock us in the news to this day. One of the early crises was the Karen State's struggle for its own independence from Burma. In "Life's Journey In Faith" Mr Zan takes us on his trek through those dangerous years as he fought the Japanese in the War, joined in the Karen State's rebellion and ultimately escaped with his family to freedom.

The harsh details of some of his more trying experiences are left understated; Mr Zan modestly downplays the personal adversity he endured to get his family to safety. However, his astute descriptions of his surroundings and activities make clear to the attentive reader the serious dangers he successfully negotiated. Not just when he formed a resistance cell to help subvert the murderous Myanmar government or the years he spent in prison. Even after illegally entering Thailand by driving jungle dirt roads to safety, he needed a passport so he could work and support his wife and kids. He got one.

Mr Zan's clear account of his experiences show him to be a man humbly and honestly living his spiritual values. You can always tell the lives of that sort of person: they're full of protectors materializing unbidden, "lucky" breaks, and happy endings. Uncle Z has had his share of those.

Uncle Z talks in the book about the discipline he and Aunt Nunu 'applied with tender loving care' to us boarding house kids. My memories of him and his wife have not a single trace of 'discipline' about them; they simply loved us into doing the best we could, whether it was having manners at the table, cleaning up after our spitwad fights or living by honorable principles.

"Life's Journey In Faith" is worth reading just for the history but it's also a blessing for the inspiration of Spencer Zan's spiritual life.

This book was very easy reading and I learned so much about another country. Not only about a country but about how faith kept so many people safe. It made me realize how good we have it here in the US. Spencer Zan was a special person that loved his family very much. He also helped a lot of other people be safe during the war. At times this book was very humorous but it also was horrifying hearing everything that this family and their friends went through. I'm glad he wrote this book to make other people aware of what went on in Burma and Burma's continuing struggle. I think this would be a great book for schools to use in there history studies. It not only tells the story of Burma during the war and its political turmoil but it also takes you on a journey of a family of two children and how they escaped to the US . What a journey they had, only eating rice with sand in it at times and traveling through the jungle with tigers, lions and snakes and oh yes let's not forget those leaches. We really are very fortunate here in the US.

This is a fast and easy read book that chronicles the life of one man and his family through milestones in history and most known being the Pacific Theater in World War II and specifically the Japanese occupation of Burma. In fact this is my father, and in reading his life's journey, I was awed by his recollection of the most intricate details and certain experiences in his life that affect him still today. Only living in Burma up to the age of 10 I did not have the replete history that he recounts in the book but I do remember and still feel the pulse of life as it was in Burma and the sweet aroma of curry, sweets and the tropics that permeate your senses as a kid. This book reveals how my good life today was shaped by one man's courageous and faith enabled actions. I hope everyone will read this book to get a glimpse of a very reclusive country, filled with a rich ethnic tapestry and woven with twists and turns as Burma went from the verge of great things to one of the most impoverished countries in the world. Today, I am proud to be an American and at the same time, proud of my heritage and prouder still of my Dad and how he led his life. This is a must read book for those who believe in the power of the human spirit and the foundation of faith that navigates us through the stormy seas of life.

I am so happy I discovered Love and Reruns in Adams County. This is a terrific novel that reminded me in many ways of Richard Russo's novels. It is a novel full of lovable losers in deadend lives, and despite that, is still a joy to read. The characters may be depressed, but, because Mark Spencer injects just enough humor into the novel, the reader is never depressed. Spencer writes in a witty, wry style. I hope to read more of Spencer's works. I can't believe this one did not get more attention when it was published. Enjoy.

Mark Spencer is one of the best literary writers alive! Why don't we see more of him? His writing is a thousand percent better than most of the works being published today. Take a hint, publishers!!! LOVE AND RERUNS IN ADAMS COUNTRY is an excellent book - so well written. The story and the characters remain with you forever.

Booklist does an excellent review of this work by Mr. Spencer, so that there is little I can add other than to simply say-- TRACK THIS BOOK DOWN AND *READ IT*!!

But, don't be surprised it it stays with you, if the characters haunt you after you close it up and shelve it away; they may all be sad, dysfunctional, maudlin hayseeds, but there's a bit of Bobby, Pamela, Lon and Becky Anne in each of us... It's the humanity of the characters-- as unexamined lives as they may be leading-- that is most appealing about this book. Whatever else they are or are are not, whatever else they may or may have not done with their lives, they're REAL and they're ALIVE. *That's* what makes this book worth finding and reading!!