X Books

my son - age 14- hates to read but loves to skateboard and he actually read this book in less than a week with no prompting from me. The fact that it was set in the geographic area where we live also helped make it interesting. He said he liked it (high praise from him for a book!)

I picked up this book after I heard about it on the radio. It's a great story that boys and girls would love. They have to have an interest in skateboarding. I bought it for my son (13 yrs) and he couldn't put it down. He loved the action and all the skateboarding talk. Even my daughter (11 yrs) liked it.

If you're looking for a great story that the kids will love, this is it.

Gene Steinberg's Upgrading & Troubleshooting Your Mac: Mac OS X Edition is a hands-on manual that focuses on both Mac OS X and Mac OS 9.1 and later. It discusses upgrading, preventive maintenance, and troubleshooting. Filled with case histories to illustrate common problems and repair solutions, this book covers a wide range of important issues -- from survival advice for laptops and organizing SCSI chains to overcoming Ethernet difficulties. 612 pages

At last, a book that's taken away the fear of Mac OS X. Mr. Steinberg's newest book not only tells you how to get the most out of your Mac hardware, he shows you how to make Mac OS X 10.1 play nicely. I was pleased to discover a way to do a clean install of Mac OS X without erasing my drive (something Apple has yet to figure out) and a handy terminal tip that helped me empty the trash when I started getting messages that it was "in use." I highly recommend this book.

Erna Cooper's The Venice Apartment & Other Stories takes you on a journey through life. Ms. Cooper's book has mystery, travel, and love. This collection of short stories brings a new genre of short story writing to the reader. Ms. Cooper's eloquent writing style is like a painter painting his or her brush strokes in a fine painting. The Venice Apartment & Other Stories opens your mind to intrigue and your heart for caring, which will bring many enjoyable hours of reading. I recommend this book in everyone's library collection.

Claude J. Prince, Television Producer (Formerly with Fox Television)

I read the "Venice Apartment & Other Stories" possibly too quickly the first time and decided to read it through again. Both times I found it to be a worthwhile experience. Throughout the collection of short stories I found an underlying theme of the struggle (of artists) within the framework of "normal" life. They fight to lift their work up and above life's constraints...and art seems to prevail.

Erna Cooper has created an intriguing collection of stories with characters that many of us can identify with, especially if one has an artistic sense or has experienced the demands of those considered true artists in their respective fields of painting, sculpture, writing, music, etc.

Some artists tend to put their art above all else and may be extremely insensitive to the needs of their family and friends. There was a time I believed this to be due to their selfish behavior. After being enlightened by this writing of Erna Cooper, I can now understand the sacrifices that artists make in their personal lives...which allow them to make possible something greater than themselves...namely the creation of art!

Erna Cooper also takes us effectively into the hearts of minds of her characters. You will experience some intense emotion as you read through and identify with some of them. In one story, experiencing the relationship dynamics within the triangle of mother, son and future daughter-in-law was painful, but rewarding. There is an ending scene that was beautiful and gratifying...with a sense of healing and then rebirth when two lives shed the destructive forces that they wrestled with earlier in the story. In another story, a father and daughter share secrets from their past at a critical time in their lives. A tender love affair flourishes in the last story.

There are many great moments to experience in the stories of the "Venice Apartment..." You will leave this book with a greater understanding of relationships among artists, lovers, muses, and basic folk. It is recommended...read it twice if you can!


The Venice Apartment and Other Stories

While the book takes place in rural Vermont, it gives one an insight to small town America in the mid 20th century. It's interesting to see American technology and life evolve through the years.

This is a very interesting look at small town life in the 20th century. While the focus of the book is on life in Vermont, the larger story is an account of how life in the United States has evolved during the 20th century. One wonders what life was like before cell phones and laptops, this book provides insight into that, and gives the reader a path to where we are now as a culture.

This is an immensely important work. One I am embarrassed to admit has been in my library for more than a decade without having been read. And, had it not been for a reference to it in a speech by the British Psychologist, Robert M. Young (author of the magisterial "Mental Spaces,"), on the issue of Violence and Racism (given in Manitoba, Canada 13 January 1999), even today I might still not have cracked open the book.

My only excuse is that so much of the writings about Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has turned out to be disappointing idle hero-worshiping that it all has become one big rather meaningless blob -- and that includes the rendition by one of my intellectual heroes Michael Eric Dyson. To his credit though, in both the cases of King and Malcolm, Dyson at least tried to get the facts of their lives right.

Here, Wolfenstein has done so much more than just get the facts of Malcolm's life right. This is a full-bodied meta-theoretical analysis of Malcolm's life in the context of America's racist and capitalist culture and economy. And it is one done at a very high intellectual level and wielded with great skill even if it is at times a little intellectually brutal and rough around the edges.

In a deeply honest (rather than fawning) effort to get at the real meaning of Malcolm's life, Wolfenstein has produced a meta-theoretical masterpiece, one that arguably (were it not so politically radioactive (i.e. it has an avowedly socialist bent) and were it not such a raw intellectual expression), should have received a book award at least for inventiveness and creativity.

Wielding Freudian psychological analysis and Marxist political and economic analysis with equal facility and deftness, Wolfenstein has sidestepped much of the story-telling in order to put Malcolm's life experiences into a context of higher theoretical meaning, and might I add, to higher theoretical use.

Using Malcolm's life experiences as THE object lesson of what a racist society can do to one random black individual (and undoubtedly by extension to some extent has done to us all), Wolfenstein has woven together a tightly knit theoretical and social critique of America's racist culture. (It is absolutely scary how well he has done this.)

However, the purpose of this critique is not just to punch another hole into an already weak and crumbling capitalist/racist façade, it is to show where there still might be some light and hope at the end of this nightmarish tunnel and how to eventually find it. And it must be said in passing, that with only a few exceptions, this is a great deal more than most of our black intellectuals have done (and are doing). One of those exceptions, of course, is Professor Cornel West.

If one makes clear that by the "racially oppressed" Wolfenstein means both black and white races, then I believe he has correctly identified the real problem of a racist culture: How does it falsify the consciousness of the racially oppressed. And how do racially oppressed individuals free themselves from both falsification of their consciousness and the racist domination of their practical activity.

Using Malcolm's life experiences as an example (which during his early life, like that of many young black people, lurched from one dark pre-set societal trap to another), Wolfenstein shows us how to get behind the screen of false consciousness that a racist/capitalist culture creates and relies on to do most of its ideological and psychological dirty work. Only beyond this screen is there to be found a truer more authentic reality upon which a humanity of loving, caring, genuine brotherhood, and sharing can rest.

Wolfenstein, using the discrete events of Malcolm's life, demonstrates, beyond doubt, that it is the screen of false consciousness that aids and abets the capitalist project of commodifying our reality, distorting our worldview and thus greatly diminishing our humanity.

By bifurcating our culture into alienated racial and emotional groupings (Wolfenstein's more generalized idea of class), he shows rather graphically, how it is the false consciousness of capitalist exploitation that shapes our worldview -- from the intrapersonal all the way up to the level of culture. It is false consciousness that shapes and deforms individual characters, the psychology, ideology and the cultures of emotional groupings. It shapes our institutions and symbols of state, and causes so much alienation both between and within the various groupings.

The author illustrates how the false consciousness created by America's racist and capitalist social and economic system, commodifed Malcolm's mind and his reality, robbing him of any vestige of an authentic humanity and led him blindly, almost automatically down a path to violence, alienation, drug addiction, crime, exploitation of women, and ultimately to his own self-destruction. Only by getting outside the racist/capitalist paradigm into the Black Muslim religious sect was Malcolm able to partially recover from the damage done to his psyche.

In short, Wolfenstein shows, using Malcolm's life as a vivid object lesson, that it is also the false consciousness in our own lives that is the primary basis for deflecting and distorting our reality from its authentic basis. The authentic basis upon which most of us wish to rest our humanity is on a desire for human relationships based on true emotional feelings unmediated by racist psychology and ideology and that exploits, homogenizes, alienates, commodifies and then greatly diminishes our individual and collective humanity. But it is precisely the things in this list that American democracy does to each of us. And that is why, Wolfenstein considers us all: both black and white, its victims.

Although my own research tends more towards postmodern Freudian analysis of the likes of Otto Rank, Ernest Becker, Norman O. Brown, and especially Robert M. Young and Melanie Kline, Wolfenstein's analysis here using the old Freudian/Marxist model proves that even though it is still tricky, that there is much gold to still be mined from that model.

This is a very, very worthy effort Five stars.

This is a very "wordy" book about a complex man, his life, politics, and beliefs. It is not a history per se of Malcolm X, nor is it a biography, rather it is a collection of ideas within ideas about Malcolm X and what made him tick. I must warn you though it is not as easy book to read, but it rates five stars in my opinion because it attempts to be analytical and non-judgemental about the man and his times. Not an easy task when you are writing about someone as famous as Malcolm X. This is a good book to supplement Alex Haley's book on Malcolm X as it looks deeper into the man and what he stood for. Well worth reading if you have the time and patience.

This beautiful short story collection blew me away! The writers' takes on Generation X have an extraordinary balance of wit, insight and notable literature. Tamara Jeffrie's "Black Tea," David Foster Wallace's "Girl with Curious Hair," and Amanda Filipacchi's "Nude Men" (a vignette taken from the novel with the same name -- Nude Men is one of my all-time favorite novels) have elements of magical realism in them. Although this book appears to be targeted toward Gen X readers, this is a timeless and ageless anthology that is to be savored like fine wine. I couldn't recommend this book enough...

This has to be one of the most exciting collections of individuals' work that I can remember reading. Each contributor is unlike any current works that I'm aware of. I can't wait for the follow up

In Philip MacDonald's world the butler just may have done it. I was watching a movie "23 Paces to Baker Street" (1956), about a blind man (Van Johnson) overhearing a kidnap and murder plot. The credits said based on a story by Philip MacDonald. The story turns out to be Warrant for X.

With a few differences the story was going paralleling the film then I recognized the name of Anthony Gethryn. It turns out that this book is part of a series that includes Colonel Gethryn. I have even seen another movie with him in it that was totally different from 23 paces but matched the book to a tee. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) where George C. Scott plays Anthony Gethryn.

Naturally the book s more complex than the movie. And just incase you come in the middle of the series as I did; there is sufficient references to earlier novels to keep you from getting lost. The mystery will keep you and the edge of your seat and just as you think they have a handle on "the who, what and why," they are off and running again.

In Philip MacDonald's world the butler just may have done it. I was watching a movie "23 Paces to Baker Street" (1956), about a blind man (Van Johnson) overhearing a kidnap and murder plot. The credits said based on a story by Philip MacDonald. The story turns out to be Warrant for X.

With a few differences the story was going paralleling the film then I recognized the name of Anthony Gethryn. It turns out that this book is part of a series that includes Colonel Gethryn. I have even seen another movie with him in it that was totally different from 23 paces but matched the book to a tee. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) where George C. Scott plays Anthony Gethryn.

Naturally the book s more complex than the movie. And just incase you come in the middle of the series as I did; there is sufficient references to earlier novels to keep you from getting lost. The mystery will keep you and the edge of your seat and just as you think they have a handle on "the who, what and why," they are off and running again.

Just as the other books in Patrick McDonnell's "Mutts" body of work resonate with humor, whimsy, thoughtfulness, and wit, so too does his latest compilation, "Mutts X." Mooch and Earl and their environment, causes, pals, and activities are explored using a droll eye and deft pen. It's amazing how McDonnell can communicate thought-provoking ideas through such deceptively simple characters. It's all here--again: silliness, sensibility, and sensitivity. For total Mutts immersion, be sure to check out the official website: www.muttscomics.com.

Who doesn't love MUTTS? Patrick McDonnell's endearable little critters have stolen my heart.

I'm not a mutt, but I often wish I were Earl the dog with a lovable friend like Mooch the cat ... a friend who could make me laugh and keep me "up" in this crazy, mixed-up world where laughs are often hard to come by.

Come to think of it, I do have TWO friends like that and when we get together we have more fun than Toonies chasing Mischief-Makers (from the YA novel, The Toonies Invade Silicon Valley). Neighbors in the beachtown of Capitola, CA, we were the "scourge" of the beach crowd. My friends are nicknamed Boobs and Fang, while I'm Legs to them.

But getting back to this book, it's hilarious, and will cure your ills for sure. Delightful!!! LOL :>) ... or is it ( >: ...???

Happy reading!

One of the funniest books that i have ever read. If you ever need advice when writing a letter for a job interview, YOU NEED THIS BOOK. For example:
"AS mentioned in your ad, i am an hoest, highley motivated, independantworker that can be trusted with the responsibility involved in handling large sums of money.
My resume is enclosed. (Please note that both prior convictions are under appeal.)"
Danny Y
Once again FUNNIEST BOOK EVER!!!!!¿¿!!!!!

I think we all know people who would actually try some of these tactics, and THAT'S what makes some of these so funny !!

For example, what NOT to write in a follow-up letter to Human resources:

" ... please note that my home contact phone number has been changed. If you ever look out your window (for example, right now), you will see a red Ford van in the parking lot. That's me."

Martyn Court's "The Winning Mindset" is a departure from many motivational tomes in that the reader feels a one-on-one presence with the author. The style is conversational, rather than pedantic, including a lot of vernacular "pep talk", much as a coach would deliver to his team during an intermission. This unique delivery involves the reader immediately on what becomes a compelling and fruitful ride.

At times one can hear oneself resisting Martyn's observations and prescriptions, yet, almost telepathically, Martyn anticipates that and answers those objections swiftly and to the point - just like one-on-one coaching.

Though there is overlapping content with other books of this genre, such as positive imaging, emotional involvement, releasing, and so on, Martyn brings only what you need for positive results, leaving the embellishments aside. One of the greatest contributions for me was to forget the "SMART Model" in favor of the "HAPPI Model". Very good stuff here.

I recommend this book highly for results-oriented athletes or achievers of any sort.

This is more than a book it's an easy and straight forward method to grow your own winning mindset. The releasing exercises work and my mental strength and self-belief have already benefited. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to be better at anything they do