Death Books

I don't know what it's going to take to finally get the world passed it's denial that the HIV/AIDS connection has been a horrible mistake...a giant hoax... but maybe this novel, based on hard, cold facts, will get the attention that Dr. Peter Duesberg's book, Inventing the AIDS Virus, deserved. How this nightmare all came about is unthinkable, but NOT unbelievable. I truly hope that someone in Hollywood has the courage to turn this book into a movie.

I enjoyed the book. It read like a cross between a John Grisham legal thriller and an informative scientific treatise on AIDS.

One of the things that gives great plausibility to this novel is the scientific history of AZT -- the primary drug used to treat AIDS patients from 1987-1996.

In short, AZT is highly toxic cancer chemotherapy. When the AIDS experts utterly failed to develop a vaccine, they panicked, floundered and turned to AZT as a Plan B. The problem, though, is that like most cancer chemo, AZT, kills white bloods leading to immune deficiency.

Indeed, the first double-blind study of AZT, showed that one of the major hematological abnormalities (ie, deadly side effects) was leukopenia -- a decrease in white blood cells.

So, if HIV purports to kill white blood cells, Why would anyone take a toxic drug, that also kills white blood cells? Wouldn't this compound the problem, rather than ameliorating it?

In any event, Davis has provided a real page-turner, that shows some of the dark side, greed and incompetence that has permeated AIDS science since its inception 25 years ago. I definitely recommend it.

After reading this book, I just wanted to yell out to all the world to Please, WAKE UP!

Stephen Davis! You wrote an extaordinary book that once opened, cannot be put down! This book is a Powerful Truth placed in the context of a courtroom drama that kept my attention from first page to last!

Everyone has always felt in their gut that there was something that just was not quite right with HIV and AIDS. You have shown us exactly what was wrong: ALL of it, from beginning to end. Wrong causes and wrong cures, and our very human ignorance that has kept us enslaved to our fears and cost hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.

You have uncovered and documented the truth and presented it in a way that keeps the reader hanging on every word. The reader is left praying that the AIDS trial you describe would actually come to pass so that all of mankind could learn the lessons involved and learn them before one more life is unneccesarly lost.

Thank you Mr. Davis for your gifts of truth!

Simply put, this novel is an impossibility. What author could take a straight-forward, all dialogue, scientific exposition and somehow infuse it with the crackling tensions of "12 Angry Men", the sublime discoveries of the "Microbe Hunters", and the numbing absurdities of "The Pentagon Wars"? And toss a jolting plot twist into the middle of it all? And casually append a 70-page "Plaintiff's Exhibits" (a reference bibliography) as if it were something common to all novels? Behold, that impossibility is here made manifest. To note just one chapter, you've never heard of SMON, have you? Well, you'll be glued to your seat, discovering how Japan's deadly SMON fiasco foretold the far more deadly AIDS fiasco, and you'll marvel that you never heard of it and that a book could bring science so vividly to life.

WRONGFUL DEATH - The AIDS Trial
By Stephen Davis

AT LAST THE TRUTH THROUGH FICTION ABOUT THE DEATH OF A GENERATION OF YOUNG MEN
Review by Joan Shenton - medical journalist and documentary producer.

As I read Stephen Davis's remarkable book I said to myself, "This could have happened. This should have happened."

Having followed and participated in the debate surrounding HIV as the cause of AIDS from the very beginning there is no doubt in my mind that the death of a generation of young men and some women who had been diagnosed HIV antibody positive took place, caused by AZT.

No one survived the high dose regime of 1,500 milligrams a day. The truth behind Peter Duesberg's challenge to the HIV/AIDS hypothesis would have emerged through the public arena of the courts had a few lawyers had the courage to pursue the cases of drug injury put before them.

Duesberg will attest how the initial enthusiasm shown by the lawyers who were approached soon cooled as they checked in with the ruling scientific orthodoxy who told them of the "overwhelming evidence" that HIV causes AIDS. It was hard for lawyers to take the risk as the very few independent scientific voices on this issue were drowned by the cacophony from the National Institutes of Health and from academics across the United States whose departments were receiving money from the pharmaceutical industry for running their multi-centre clinical trails for AZT.

Davis's book is disturbing but also deeply satisfying to read, as through his fictitious narrative he slowly "gets the villains". The hero, prosecuting lawyer Benjamin Mesick, is a cross between Don Quixote and a samurai warrior. He calls witnesses from the scientific orthodoxy who require a subpoena, scores his points off them and leaves the defence struggling.

The villain is Dr Robert Gallo who claimed to have "discovered" HIV as the cause of AIDS. Davis recounts all the political shenanigans surrounding the deal brokered by Chirac and Reagan when Gallo was accused by French scientist Luc Montagnais of having stolen his virus.

The book is also all the more juicy for an British reader as UK libel laws would, as I understand it, prevent the real names of scientists like Robert Gallo, Anthony Fuci and also the names Burroughs Welcome and the National Institutes of Health to be used in such a pejorative context.

As for accuracy, the book is minutely reached with hundreds of references. As well as sticking closely to documented fact it introduces an important imaginary scenario which, if implemented today, could provide a solution to the current veil of secrecy and censorship in the scientific community. Davis introduces a witness, a scientist from Japan who describes the way a mysterious illness involving paralysis and blindness had gripped the Japanese people (and others across the world) in the 60s. It was called SMON - Sub acute Myeloid-Optic Neuropathy. This disease was initially thought to be infectious, caused be a virus. When Japan realised that this could affect their hosting of the Olympics they decided to set up a multidisciplinary commission to investigate.

In an academic climate where virologists and organisations controlling infectious diseases did not hold sway, some solid epidemiological detective work took place and it was discovered that the cause of this dreadful malady was the toxic effect of anti-diarrhoeal drugs containing variations of clioquinol which severely damaged the nervous system.

Once a multidisciplinary team is set up to investigate the science behind the infectious hypothesis for AIDS it will not take long for the verdict on the cause AIDS to be declared a toxic one. In other words the erosion of the body's immune system caused by risk associated conditions such as poverty, malnutrition, recreational drug use and certain clinical conditions like haemophilia.

This book is important on many different fronts but perhaps the most important is its presentation of the way in which scientific inquiry can become derailed by financial an ultimately political interests. It will take more careful documentation and chronicling, at times a fictitious presentation of the facts and most importantly the creation of a multidisciplinary commission in order to get independent scientific inquiry back on the rails and for the truth about AIDS to get out.

Alabama moon is a very adventurous tale with lots of facts about the woods. And its so good I got up in the morning and read it until it was bedtime. I rate it 5 stars, my favorite book yet (even better then the golden compass and man was that gooooood.)

This book is abselutely action-packed, full of adventure and shocking endings (made me cry when I read the shocking ending.) Some parts just makes you want to say "OOHH DDAARRNNIITT! But it's still the best book I have read in my whole entire life! This book is so great, I would give it 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars!

My 11 year-old is a reluctant reader, but every now and then a book comes along that keeps his interest even when it is not "reading time". This is one of those books. Moon Blake is a compelling character, having grown up in the woods with his reclusive father. And his story is captivating. He just wants to be left alone to go to Alaska, but he's picked up and taken to a boys home instead. I love how the story evolves, how you see Moon change his ideas of the world, and how he deals with the abusive constable who won't leave him alone.

A terrific book you won't be able to put down.

This book tells the journey of Moon Blake, who have always lived with his father. But when his father died, he must find a way to escape the outside civilziation and find his home. This novel has an exciting plot, wonderful research, and is a great read. By reading this book, one could also learn the meaning of friendship.

This book begs for a sequel and soon, too. We--we readers--have to know what happened to Moon and to Hal...What happens to them as they grow, mature, and face their young adult high school and college days? And when they grow up, get married and have families of their own...As they approach old age...Will they, can they, escape (overcome) the events described here in the formative days of their youth. Rarely has a book cried out for a sequel more than this one.

In fact, Mr. Key may have his own cottage industry here, a book on their continuing relationship (Moon and Hal) and/or single books on each boy.
Mark Twain did it and did it well with Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Mr. Key has the same oportunity here. Here's hoping he's up to the opportunity--not the "task," but the "opportunity."

Orginally written as a book for teens and a little older, Alabama Moon has touched all and stirred the slumbering chords of all generations as it deals with youth, growing, up, family, love and lack thereof.

Outstanding. Don't miss it.

Nanci,

First, a really BIG `Thank You!' for a book that is insightful and honest - devoid of religious platitude and `imaginative goobly gook.'

I have been researching Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) over the past few years and have found correlations between people's NDE accounts and EVP communications.

The wide-ranging variables around the descriptiveness of NDEs is related to individual mindsets, backgrounds and interpretations - and your NDE account in particular helps me to understand the extremely broad `random-type' recorded comments passed on by discarnates from within their new realms of being.

Your insights will also greatly assist other EVP researchers to begin to broaden their own mindsets as they understand that they are dealing with a great number of discarnate energies with a multiplicity of views about their particular disembodied status.

Maybe, rather than considering anything `demonic' in this life, people start to perceive human becomings as being various `shades of grey', rather than simply considered as being`evil' or`good!'

I agree - we are ALL Light Beings who exhibit different facets and hues of our godly basis in human form.

Nanci - Great Work! - You're book is a watershed for me - very much looking forward to the next two books in t

I was relieved to find out that God isn't a humorless, authoritarian parent figure keeping tabs on us. Thanks, Nanci!

Elaine Lewis

I've read just about every book there is about life after death, life before life, etc. and some of them have really touched me deeply, especially Michael Newton's "Journey of Souls" and "Destiny of Souls" and Neale Donald Walsch's "Conversations with God" series. I really thought that this subject had been so thoroughly covered that there wasn't much new that could be offered but this book, "Backwards" by Nanci Danison, somehow captures the best of all the previous books in this genre and then goes beyond that. It is a book filled with breathtaking new insights and mind-expanding revelations. This book resonated with everything inside me that I think of as "me" and then went beyond that to touch who I really am and that is a Being of Light. After finishing this book I bought the CD audio book so that I could listen to this over and over again. After reading this I have gone beyond just hoping that what other near-death experiencers have told us is true to actually believing that what Nanci saw & heard is the true reality. This book takes the FEAR out of life. For the first time, the very first time in my life, I find that I'm actually looking forward to each new day, no matter what it brings, and I'm looking at it without that FEAR that permeated my outlook before. Love is all that matters and no truer words were ever spoken. What an awesome experience this book has been.....and still is every day. Thank you for sharing it Nanci and I hope there are more books to come.

Nanci Danison's Near Death Experience (NDE), as described in Backwards, is the most detailed NDE I have ever read. And I have read thousands of NDE's, since being riveted by my first one in 1977 from Dr. Raymond Moody.

Nanci was a successful lawyer in a large law firm in the Midwest when she crossed over to the other side. She had not spent 10 years in an ashram wondering about the meaning of life. Rather, this "death" happened unexpectedly and changed her life forever - which in many ways makes her book all the more evidential. And for the skeptics, she did not die alone but in a major Midwestern hospital under a physician's care.

Nanci confirms what I have known for a while now; there is no death. Death and dying are a process. What we call death is no more than stepping through a doorway back to our real home. We leave this dimension at death and go back home. There we evaluate our recent life and our recent progress and get ready for another learning experience. Such is the real nature of light beings, she writes.

She confirms what thousands of NDEs teach. We come to this dimension to learn, to teach, to serve our fellow humans and to make a positive difference. The rub is that we come here with free will. Free will allows us to live a life of service or turn and serve ourselves with a dark, selfish, self indulgent evil lifetime.

Nanci confirms, in no uncertain terms, that our "purpose" here is to learn how to love and to give and receive love. Our real purpose is the antithesis of our materialistic "grab all you can get," world we inhabit; yet it is true. All of my travels through various belief systems (religions) confirm what Nanci learned in her grand tour on the other side.

Backwards is not merely a book, but rather it is a journey. You travel with Nanci to the center of the Universe and discover again why you came here in the first place.

I am thankful for Nanci Danison's insightful recall of her personal NDE which resonated deeply within me; and, as I read her account, I had the sense I was hearing truth spoken, finally! I was recently privileged to hear Ms. Danison speak in person and found her personal account of her profoundly life-changing experience surprisingly candid and honest, thus, very credible - a woman who needed to do something with the knowledge she was given during her incredible journey and in so doing, she's become God's Messenger. This is a book I will return to over and over again.

I enjoyed reading it and learned some interesting things but I've also gotten lots of mileage out of using it as a business or thank you gift.

This book should be read by all parents/adults. Educate your children on how to keep germ free and be consistant with that teaching. Many illnesses/deaths can be avoided by following the simple steps given in this book.

This book is chock full of great tips. It's breezy and informative style is definitely geared for those who love trivia and for the compulsive worrier! It's attractively packaged and fits into a stocking.

BE SAFE is a safe gift that I am giving to all my loved ones. It is a humorous approach to many of the kinds of problems that you want to save them from without being preachy.

This book is brimming with tons of useful and eye-opening tips that channel the hypochondriac in everyone. The author has done an exhaustive amount of research on the hazards of our day to day choices--many of which I have never even thought twice about. The mini packaging makes it an adorable and handy gift.

In hardly more than 200 pages, Ernest Becker has written a book of remarkable and startling insight into human nature, the culture that arises from that nature, and how to see what most people cannot: the way we've been programmed from infancy to cope with the anxieties of the human condition according to the symbol systems imparted to us by our parents and our society.

Culture, religion, political ideals...they are nothing but neurotic defenses against existential terror.

We're born from out of nowhere and dissolved back into nowhere--and the anxiety this produces we must somehow forget if we're to get on with the day-to-day business of living. But as a result, we end up living largely shallow lives, finding "meaning" in material pleasures and possessions, in patriotism, professions, catechisms of one sort or another, even in parenthood because that's what our society rewards us for doing.

But do these pursuits really satisfy--or are they only neurotic responses to feelings of powerlessness and fears of meaninglessness in the face of an inescapable death we'd rather do anything than face?

Becker lucidly traces our development as individuals and as a species from a basic sense of helplessness to a mastery of our environment through the manipulation of symbols, primarily language, self-reflection, and abstract thinking. This mastery is, in fact, a desperate and necessary quest for self-esteem in the face of our cosmic irrelevance that is literally a matter of life and death.

That seemingly stupid and pointless exchange of nods and raised eyebrows that transpires when you pass a workmate in the office--it's loaded with codes and cues. The dumb small-talk you're compelled to make at cocktail parties--it fulfills a social contract whose terms we've agreed to by default, just by being a "human" being. We are all engaging in a drama, each with our parts to play, and if you don't play yours, the rest will turn against you because what you are doing is threatening to expose the whole show as nothing but a charade. The unemployed, the ostracized, the homeless, the lonely, those committed to prisons and mental hospitals--their ranks are filled with people who, for one reason or another, cannot play along successfully.

Most people can't handle the truth--which is largely how the world keeps going round.

Becker is talking to those who can. He urges those strong enough to cast off the fictions we live by, the fetters that bind us, the falsehoods that protect us from fear--but that also keep us from authentic living. Because even if we play along, many of us are unhappy, even if we don't realize why. The world is a violent place filled with neurotic and psychopathic "normal" people...society itself is a neurotic response taken by the majority to an intolerable condition. Instead of merely playing our roles, Becker calls us to a new kind of religious sensibility--one that asks questions rather than repeat traditional answers. A religious sensibility--not a religion--that enables us to hold in balance our paradoxical position somewhere between god and animal.

The goal, Becker seems to say, is to choose a role for ourselves but never forget that it is a role. Like the existentialists, Becker suggests that the "meaning" of life is the meaning we give it--but that's "all" it is, the meaning we've decided to give it. And to be truly free is to never become so wholly lost in the role we've assigned ourselves, nor the drama we've written to star in that we mistake ourselves for our role or the drama for reality.

We are, in fact, what lies behind all that--an actor whose face we never see in full light, who appears on stage and disappears off-stage, who remains unknown even when the final credits roll.

It may well be that most people cannot endure such uncertainty--nor so much freedom. And, sadly, that's why the world is in the sorry condition it's in, has always been, and most likely will always be.

But "I" is a candle that can only be lit one at a time. That's the good news Becker delivers in this bluntly provocative but ultimately inspiring book. If you've often felt like a character in a Twilight Zone episode, the one sane person in a lunatic asylum, Becker is good company. You're almost certain to enjoy his work.

Becker again posits brilliant insights into the human condition and the psychological forces which motivate us. This is an early work, not as complete and relevant to his later, brilliant, The Denial of Death, but still definitely worth the read.

This book is in one sense an overall anthropological history of the development of Mankind. In another it is a kind of Freudian- Adlerian-Frommian analysis of why we humans are what we are. For Becker the central element in the human condition is our search for self- esteem. I found illuminating his whole description of this subject, and the way in which human beings seek to have their value affirmed in the judgments of others.
Becker tells the story of how children in seeking the approval of their apparents, are taught to limit themselves and develop the guilt of conscience. He tells how each of us may conceive our own lives as a kind of drama in which we are the hero. And how often what we do is artifically constructed to meet our human need for self- esteem.
There are many deep quotable passages in the book.
" The basic question the person wants to ask and answer is 'Who am I''What is the meaning of my life"'' What value does it have'? And we can only get answers to these questions by reviewing our relationships to others,what we do to and for others, and what response we get from them.Self- esteem depends on our social role,and our inner-newsreel is always packed with faces- it is rarely a nature documentary. Even holy men who withdraw for years of spiritual development come back into the fold of societyto earn recognition for their powers.'
This is work which leads us to ask how we know and understand our own meaning and value in life.
And if it is difficult to know where exactly Becker comes out in the end, and what exactly he is advocating ( Reveling in the paradoxes of our own being? and our inability to solve the riddles of our life and death?) this work has great value in inspiring reflection on the meaning of our humanity.

Introduction

When the name Ernest Becker is mentioned, it is time to pull out the superlatives. Like his other books, this one too is panoramic in scope; magisterial in its command of the material it covers, and as always, comprehensive. It is another synthesis that constitutes an odyssey on the meaning of man. And, as with his other analyses, this one begins with anthropology, adds psychology, psychosocial history, and as needed, biology and philosophy. Because it is so comprehensive, yet so readable, this remains one of the most important books in the social sciences. It is near the top of my "Hall of Fame" list of must read good books. It sums up in an elegant, simple, yet profound way, what we know about man's existence on this earth up to the present.

Becker's Ontology of Man

Becker has put forth here nothing less than a full ontology of man. At the center of his theoretical (and theatrical) edifice is man's urge to achieve self-esteem. In Becker's ontology, the pursuit of self-esteem is the supreme motive of man's existence. Self-esteem (a point that Freud missed) is the construction material out of which the "Grand Hotel" that houses all of man's meaning, is built: That Grand Hotel is culture.

Man comes about self-esteem as being his primary motive for existence in a very natural and logical way. The meaning begins with Becker's unraveling of the mystery of how the mind evolved. Mind, is simply an organism's style of reacting to its environment. The world of meaning is built up out of the range and subtlety of its reactivity. Through "fine-tuning," the animal learns overtime to condition his reactions, and from there, on to mental association. Mind then is just a progressive increase in the freedom and sophistication of an organism's ways of reacting. Freud gave us a map of how this process of reactivity is constituted within the brain's architecture. The "id," a remnant of the instinctive and reptilian brain, is uncontrolled "reactivity; the ego seeks to control and delay the reactivity of the "id." This delaying allowed for the ability to see ahead, plan and decide. From this basic understanding, of reactivity, Becker's story of the development of mind is simply this:

That the imperatives of man being a "meat-eating mammal" and the complex social requirements of, being around females in constant estrus, caused the turning of a complex evolutionary wheel that ended in an unfolding of all the characteristics we now recognize as human: the ability to plan and reason; the use of language and the invention of social organization and culture. The ensuing developmental sequence in Becker's mind is clear and straightforward: Meat-eating required hunting; a successful hunt (especially of larger animals) of course required cooperation. Cooperation on the hunt, and the avoidance of conflict -- over the continuous sexual stimulation due to monthly estrus -- mandated, planning, symbolic or abstract thinking, and complex social interactions, which led to social organization. Social organization and symbolic thinking led directly to a culture based on language and then on to its most evolved social expression, with the end-product being a "hero system;" a system where the primary sustenance was no longer based on fighting for sex and meat alone, but also on symbolic rewards such as status and roles based on self-esteem: Pride in ones own ability became a survival tool that replaced the familiar animal need to fight over food and sex.

The Drama of Culture as Meaning

Culture is the treasure chest in which all of man's meanings reside - effectively a conduit to man's historical memory. It is where character, identities and personalities of individuals are constructed, shaped, and sensitively maintained. It is where the rules for "self-esteem maintenance" are transacted and enforced through the process of socialization. In exchange for the safety of one's self-esteem, and being allowed to become "an object of primary value in a world of meaningful action," man is asked to give up most of his freedom "to be." The price for a room in the Grand Hotel of culture thus at first seems negotiable: It is to become a "reality-adjusted" and a "socially-adjusted" being. Sharing the same "worldview" and sharing the same "social customs and meanings" is the price for a key to a room in the Grand Hotel of culture. But there is a paradox: one can "opt out" of the negotiation only at the peril of his own psychological and physical existence. Thus, one is either "socially-adjusted, or abandoned from the Grand Hotel of culture.

Inside the Grand Hotel, the drama of culture is "played out" each night on the stage in the main opera house. It is a comic-tragic self-referential drama of social heroism. Society writes the scripts, assigns the roles, shapes the identities, choreographs all meanings, and orchestrates the plot about itself. It is a drama in which, anyone seeking a room in the hotel, cannot "opt out of." If ones life is to be an object of primary value in a world of meaningful action, then his self-esteem must be hitched to a culture. In short his freedom must be "cashed in" at the theater window. There are no other choices. Opting "not to play a role" is in fact a role in man's cultural drama of heroism. Thus all of the dramas of man's meanings are existential in character. In all the plots about man's heroism, the highest form of existence for him is to be able to act with freedom and independence in a world of meaning. But everything that man does is self-referential, self-objectifying and self-justifying, because the world in which his meanings become operational is primarily symbolic: that is to say, the world of meanings itself is negotiated through language.

The Death of Meaning

In a paradoxical tautology that is inherent in man's linguistically based world of meaning, man posits, as a creative act of mind, theories about what is meaningful within his own world. He then, as a way of confirming the theory he has just concocted, goes about trying to objectify and prove that these meanings are what he said they were in the beginning.

Invariably these theories are about what man must do in order to survive physically and mentally in a disordered, chaotic and always hostile environment (the most hostile of which is man himself). The hero is always the one who "knows, and can lead the way to order, safety, and survival." However there is a limit to what man can do in order to ensure his own survival, and the survival of his meanings: Man's existence on earth is finite. There is a definite endpoint. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, only darkness. The existential drama must always end in tragedy. Inevitably, the drama of heroism always ends in death: the death of man, and the death of his meanings. Man has not yet learned how to overcome death. But even in this case where he learns to deny his lack of mortality: where he must struggle with his own finitude, man must create symbolic ways of overcoming and defying death. These ways are called "immortality projects."

If one looks closely enough at all of the dramas of heroism staged in the Grand Hotel, they all "pretend" to sidestep and ignore death, yet despite this, if you examine them closely, they are always about how to go directly to the act of building "immortality projects," or about how to invoke gods who will rescue man and his meanings from the inevitability of the very death he is "pretending" not to know is there? In this state of collective denial, man's dramas of heroism are always both comic and tragic.

1000 stars

Ernest takes your innocent little hand and walks you through human organismic life from the beginning, and quickly paralyzes you with observations like this: (quote-page 67) "The child learns painfully that he cannot earn parental approval...by continuing to express himself with his body...(his) self-value no longer derives from the mother's milk, but from the mother's mouth. The change is momentous because of what is implicit in it: the child's basic sense of self-value has been largely arificialized." From these brutal observations, Becker lays the solid groundwork for his Pulizer Prize "Denial of Death" and final "Escape from Evil". PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR: If you have always sensed that the world is artificial and want to begin to reset your mind for further thinking, buy and read all of Becker's work. In doing so, his philosophy will never leave your mind. Intelligent people owe it to themselves to give it a glance and apply their own thoughs to it.

The first section of this book reads like a mystery thriller only it was true of the situation in London just 100 years before most of us were born. The rampant use of denial, obfuscation, and just plain lies by the medical and political power base is amazing. That is "big egos running wild"! They expressed themselves or failed to express like the EPA at the expense of the health and lives of many people. The book "Reclaiming Our Health" by John Robbins, 1996, shows it is still going on today. Just take note of all the repeated ads for pharmaceuticals you don't need on the network news broadcasts each evening. Critical thinking is necessary to protect yourself and your loved ones. Dr. John Snow was a Master of critical thinking, a gift to the human race! I have read approximately 2 to 3 books a week all my adult life and seldom read fiction. The best books are often first mentioned in a book I read. Elizabeth Royte's excellent book "Bottlemania" tipped me off to this book. Both are must reads. As stated in Royte's book, "We can live without oil, but not clean water".
Blessings on both authors and all their loved ones! They have served their fellow humans very well!

Engaging, enlightening -- could not put the book down. If you drink water you must educate yourself and read this book. Dr Morris weaves his points with medical research history and brings you to the present conclusion, our water is still not safe, millions still die each year from drinking it. His conclusions inspire you to do something about it locally and globally. Thank you for the references, too. I am inspired to read more about these topics and subtopics.

Robert Morris' book is great for anyone who is interested in issues of drinking water supply and safety. For that reason I give it five stars.

I was puzzled by a major omission. Morris mentions repeatedly that population growth is straining the water supply. Why is there no follow-up on this? In the book's conclusion, Morris makes seven proposals to guard against present and future threats to safe drinking water. Population control does not even appear on the list. It should have been #1. Without population control, most of Morris' proposals either won't be possible or won't work to reduce the problem. If we don't take steps soon to stabilize world population, waterborne disease may well become one of the major Grim Reapers doing it for us.

Morris also discusses how strained municipal and other local government resources are in the U.S., making it difficult to invest in necessary water infrastructure. I would like to point out that a major reason governments are so strained is that in the last few decades a huge percentage of local revenues has gone to automobile infrastructure--roads, highways, parking lots, and the like. America sooner or later needs to rethink its love affair with the automobile. For more on this, see Kunstler's book Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape and Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking.

I've recently finished reading "The Blue Death" which highlights early stuggles against cholera. Throughout this gripping book, I felt a resonance with a book I read as a child in the early 1940's titled "Microbe Hunters" by Paul de Kruif. De Kruif's description of Pasteur's struggles with rabies was also compelling...and scary! His book sparked my early interest in science. Perhaps, Dr. Morris' book will do the same for today's young people.Gene Primoff

This book is a great read. It provides an interesting and exciting history of the search to find the cause of cholera. It then goes on to discuss the status of drinking water in the US up to the present. Dr. Morris provides science to the reader in the form of a fast moving novel. I would reccomend it to anyone.

Have not read the book as yet but pleased with prompt delivery.

This book is both Gripping AND Complete. It may not be conventional in the way it is written, but it certainly carries you every step of the way. It will grip your soul and force you to see the depths of humanity. Both the good and bad. This is a must read for anyone who is even slightly contemplating reading it. My heart goes out to all servicemen and servicewomen past, present, and future. As well as thier families. Thank you for your sacrifices!

Author Donald Knox has taken personal narratives from over sixty survivors of the Bataan death march and combined them into this gripping story of the struggle to survive. On April 9, 1942, the penninsula of Bataan fell into Japanese hands. The surrendering Americans were then subjected to a ninety mile march without adequate food or water. Men were shot and bayonetted for sport by the Japanese. Once the Americans reached their prison camp, they were herded into a tiny area with only two water spigots. Hundreds of men died each day from dysentery, malaria, and starvation. Many healthy men were soon reduced to skeletons. Others simply refused to go on any further. Still others found that the only way they could survive was to find a friend to help them get through.

After two to three years of living in this nightmare, the American forces returned to liberate the Philippines. Fearing that the prisoners would be liberated by the returning Americans, the Japanese loaded the surviving POWs into "Hell Ships"; massively overcrowded freighters to be transferred to the Japanese home islands. Some of the men went mad, while others drowned when their ships were sunk by American submarines. Once in Japan, the men were forced to work long hours in Japanese factories and mines while still receiving little in the way of food or medical care. The conditions in the Japanese labor camps were as unimaginable as they were in the Philippines; little food and water and constant beatings by the Japanese guards.

I've read several oral history books about World War II, and this book is one of the best. Knox lets the survivors' stories create this book. I was in awe of the horrible conditions that these men were forced to survive under. It is a true testament to the human spirit that these men were able to overcome the merciless beatings and the extermely meager food and water rations they received to survive and return home. Anyone who questions why the Americans used the atomic bomb should read about the Bataan prisoners and what they were forced to endure. I highly recommend this fine piece of oral history. Read it and understand what some of the true heroes of World War II did for their country.

As a descendant of soldiers who were in the Philippine Scouts (they survived the March by escaping into the jungle), I found the first hand accounts of Americans who were there fascinating. It gave me a feeling of being there. It's a story about survival and the indomitable spirit of man.It's amazing what men will do to survive in stressful conditions and adversity. It separates the men from the boys, the strong from the weak.
I'm not accustomed to reading books in the first hand account style, but I found it more interesting to read the text as opposed to the typical factual style that a history book would have.
This a great read for you military history buffs out there! It's almost as good as sitting down with the vets and hearing them telling you their experiences.

I am a college student and I originally picked this book up to due research for a project of the Japanese atrocities of WWII. While I specifically picked up for the accounts on the Death March, I ended up reading it cover to cover. The more I read more it became useful for information on the Hell Ships and the conditions of the labor camps. It's a shame that while the stories of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany are told and retold the horrors in the Pacific Theater are barely talked about. The stories that the soldiers tell of struggle and hardship show the true heroism. I often find myself with them hoping them on. I completely recommend this book for anyway with any interest.

This is a great book that adds to the dvd. I enjoy watching the dvds;however, the books are a true insight to understand all that goes on in the Death Note Series.

This story just keeps getting better and better! What more twists and turns can the author come up with? I'm an adult and I love this Manga. It is a page turner and keeps me on the edge of my seat. What will two Kiras do to ruin the world? Oh my god!

This is an amazing book! And probably even better was the person/company I bought it from. The item arrived fast and on time as promised in great condition.

Light and L off to uni.


The situation gets more complicated as Light is starting university, and at the opening ceremony he is to speak at, he finds he has a co-speaker, who whispers to him that he is actually L!

The cat and mouse game between them continues, and Light's father having a heart attack and the discovery of a new 'Kira' and Death Note do no make anything more straightforward. All the deviousness in this serious can certainly make your head hurt.

This is one of the most original manga ever written. Read other reviewers for great plot summaries. If you are reading these reviews your question must be, "Is this something I want to read?" Death Note, unlike a great deal of manga, you have to read. It has wonderful artwork, some of the best I have ever seen. But, the art does not carry the story, the words carry this story. In volume 1, Light finds the Death Note, and at first it seems like killing all criminals is a good idea. But, by volume 2, you begin to see what the power of the Death Note is doing to Light. Volume 3, introduces a new character to the story that complicates the story line, but in a good way. If this series was a movie it would be considered "film noir". It is dark, with many plot twists, microscopic viewing of the line between good and evil, and how that line can be twisted to suit the person doing the twisting. This manga is a thinking manga. After you finish each volume, you will find yourself thinking about it, worrying over some of the plots like a dog with a bone. think, think, think. Enjoy!

I just like Brink's stories! It is mostly difficult to have a break once you have started to read his book.

Ben Du Toit teaches history and geography in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the period of the height of the youth riots in the township of Soweto. At Ben's school, Gordon Ngubene, a native, is a cleaner and he occasionally does little chores for Ben. When Ben sees that Jonathan, Gordon's son, is showing signs of intelligence and diligence, he decides to partly finance his education. One day however, Jonathan takes part in a demonstration which ends up in a violent riot and is arrested by the police. A few weeks later, after a harrowing quest through countless offices, Ben and Gordon are informed that Jonathan died "of natural causes" while in detention.
Due to the mystery surrounding his son's death, Gordon gives up his job in order to devote himself entirely to the enquiries which have become an obsession with him. Both the Special Branch and the Security Police are annoyed about Gordon's insistence and soon enough Gordon is arrested. After numerous attempts to try to trace Gordon and speak to him, Ben and Gordon's wife Emily are told by the spokesman of the Security Police that Gordon apparently committed suicide by hanging himself with strips torn from his blanket.
But Ben Du Toit senses that the official explanations for both Jonathan's and Gordon's deaths are just a pretext for poorly disguised murders and so he decides to take matters in his own hands and starts investigating.
Mr Brink's novel is a harrowing account of a solitary man's fight against all the atrocities of the Apartheid. During this dark period in the history of South Africa, a white man had to be a real hero to fight for the right of the Afrikaners. The author beautifully captures the fact that Ben has to fight not only the resentment of the people of the other race, but also that of the people belonging to his own race - his family for a start. The descriptions of the townships of Johannesburg, particularly that of Soweto, are breathtaking in their accuracy and poignancy.

Brinks sketches the life of a idealistic man - Ben du Toit that lives his life in Apartheid South Africa on the brink of normalcy until the mysterious death of a black American friend and his son points to government involvement. As du Toit becomes obsessed with discovering the truth he becomes the symbol of Afrikaner conscience struggling to cope with the conflict and alienation that this crusade against Apartheid causes. With Apartheid being woven into the Afrikaner concept of nationhood and religion Ben finds himself not only in conflict with his family or the government but with his own history and ultimately with his own identity and even his soul. du Toit becomes a classical Afrikaner in his stubborn steadfast refusal to sway from his course , irrespective of the consequences, that he believes to be the only just and morally acceptable one.

He painfully exposes the moral vacuum of Apartheid and how it alienates not just du Toit from himself and his family but ultimately the Afrikaner from their fellow South Africans, as well as their own ideas of justice and morality.

The original Afrikaans language edition packs a powerful punch and is beautiful to read. English translation loses a bit of impact and fails to capture the finesse of the master writer in his mother tongue but is never the less worth burning the midnight oil for. It should however be noted that the story is dated and not a balanced portrayal of South Africa, Afrikaners or Apartheid.

Good fiction but not a historical treatise of Apartheid as some reviewers seem to think.

During the 1970's in South Africa, several protests were happening against the apartheid acts and the education of African natives to speak Afrikaans, instead of their chosen language. In Andre Brink's brilliant novel, A Dry White Season, he presents the brutality of the African struggle for freedom from the white leaders by telling the story of one man's effort to clear his black friend's name. When Gordon Ngubene, a janitor at the local school in Johannesburg, finds his son dead without a clue of what happened, he asks his colleague Ben Dutoit for financial help and support. After certain inquiries were developed on Gordon's behalf for his son, Jonathan, he is arrested by the police and is marked by his own "suicide". However once Ben begins to unfold the evidence that leads to what truly happened, he is caught in a jungle of lies, danger, and an atrocious form of racism.

Ben Dutoit was a simple man content with his mediocre life based on his wife, two daughters, and his teaching. Although the Special Branch had become more involved in the town where he lived, he purely continued throughout his basic routine day in and day out. Once Gordon is told by the Security Police that his son has died of "natural causes" while in a severe detention for publicly protesting, it seems that he will stop at nothing to figure out what had occurred the night of Jonathan's death. "If it was me, all right. But he is my child and I must know. God is my witness today: I cannot stop before I know what happened to him and where they buried him. His body belongs to me. It is my son's body."(Pg.49 A Dry White Season). Throughout this time period, whites naturally assumed themselves superior to that of the African race, and ruthless acts were brought upon the blacks daily. Brink vividly described the numerous cruelties aimed at the "inferior race" due to such instinctive racism. The author conjures the understanding of the reader to see how simple it would be for Ben to turn a blind eye on Gordon's tragedy. Yet after Gordon is accused of strangling himself by tying bits of torn blanket together, Ben is convinced that it was torture that killed the prisoner, and Ben just cannot let the case go with injustice. One can sense just how stubborn Ben truly is regarding the truth of his friend's alleged murder, mainly because of the emotions depicted by Brink that the reader can pick up on. Assembling as much evidence against the Special Branch's summary of Gordon's arrest, with the help of taxi driver and informational guide Stanley, Ben attempts to prove that the police are sadistic liars that have crossed the line of racism and have entered a territory of the highest form of hatred. Publicity of his "Negro loving" efforts have provoked such racists to seek ways to harm Ben and his family, such as sending bombs in the mail and shooting through his windows at night. I simply cannot comprehend the motive of someone to physically or mentally abuse another for their own views. However nothing could frighten him from completing what he had started in the first place, not even the terrifying Captain Stolz who had threatened him many times during the case. The thorough detail Brink constructed to picture the startling police officer was amazing, admitting a very clear idea of just how alarming this character must have been. Aware of his immense caution in his own case, he presented one of his old college friends with pieces of information in order to write a biography of Ben Dutoit. Two weeks later, Ben was killed in a hit and run car accident, but fortunately for him, his story would not be left untold. I personally found myself having to read certain paragraphs repeatedly in order to really grasp what was happening in all of the excitement, which I appreciated from the author. The plot was persistently heart pumping, giving off the effect that South Africa's horrifying and unfair history was not given the deliberate attention it deserved.

Before this misfortune had happened, Ben had been conceived as having a rather introverted personality, spending most of his time alone playing chess in his den. However the demand for real facts about what had definitely taken place seemed to have changed his behavior. Suddenly Ben was actually offering his true opinions back to those that he would not dare before, such as Captain Stolz, no matter how harsh or unsettling. After this unexpected alteration, Ben began to become more aware of his surroundings, more observant of his daily routines that he had developed into over the years. The author made sure to explain Ben's strange emotions in noticing things in his life that seemed unfit to him. "All at once this is what seemed foreign to him: not what he had seen in the course of the long bewildering afternoon, but this. His garden, with the sprinkler on the lawn. His house, with white walls, and orange tiled roof, and windows and rounded stoop. His wife appearing in the front door. As if he'd never seen it before in his life."(Pg.99 A Dry White Season). If you take a considerable amount of time to glance at your own life, as I have done from the direction of this book, you perceive things that might belong to you, though they might seem impossible to be yours. The process is difficult to explain, until you try to complete it yourself. Brink wrote the character as if his own qualities were shifting along to the varied events of Gordon's death case. The author seemed to have used Ben's life as symbolism of how one moment could alter anyone's life as they know it. A calamity such as this could happen to anyone, even I, and this thought makes me wonder. How would the way I act now be changed?

The Soweto protests of the 1970's in South Africa led to many empty lots filled with tear-gas, public shootings, and violent massacres of black citizens. In the novel A Dry White Season, Andre Brink tells the tale of one honorable man that knew too much information for his own good at a time era like his generation, which guided him into a vast land of moral corruption. Ben Dutoit's story has captivated my imagination, gripped my heart, crossed my frustrations, and stirred my tears. This book has taught me, as well as numerous other readers as well, to follow your instincts and never let justice go unserved. "Perhaps all one can really hope for, all I am entitled to, is no more than this: to write it down. To report what I know. So that it will not be possible for any man ever to say again: I knew nothing about it. (Pg.316 A Dry White Season).

i read this while i was a high school student and i can honestly say it has been one of the few books that have made an impact on the way i view society. read it! you'll love it!

EVACUATION PLAN brought me to tears at several moments throughout the book. It's dark beauty and poetic interpretation of our struggle to embrace and accept death is heart wrenching in its honesty. A true work of art and a novel that O'Connell should be tremendously proud of!

"Evacuation Plan: a novel from the Hospice" is a wonderful blend of lives ordinary but with sometimes extraordinary elements. We all share these stories of life in some way, despite moments of harshness or unforgiving pain. There is always a common thread of "humanity" and ultimately forgiveness to be found, even if it's in the last moment of life. Elaine Williams

Aspiring script writer Matt visits a hospice in order to gather inspiration for his great play. Spending the days getting to know the people staying there, Matt realized the hospice is full of stories, for anybody who cares enough to sit down and listen. From the lady whose sister ran off with a circus artist (or wanted to, anyway) to the old man who was just hoping to be reconciled with his children before he left this earth, Matt talks to them all, asking them what was their best experience in life, and hearing the stories they just have to get off their chest-before it's too late.

The idea behind Evacuation Plan is brilliant. Joe O'Connell works from the theory that "everybody has a story to tell," and you are left with the knowledge that this is without a doubt true. The book changes focus constantly with the chapters alternatingly being told from Matt's point of view, and then from the view of one of the people at the hospice.

The main thread running through all the stories is death and how to cope with it, but this is not a strong enough connection to get the stories linked together properly, and Evacuation Plan ends up feeling more like a book of short stories with a common theme, than like a full novel. This doesn't make the book any less worth reading, but it is always an advantage for the reader to know what to expect, in order not to be disappointed by the number of loose threads left hanging.

Though dealing with a sober subject, Joe O'Connell manages to be neither too somber nor engage in too much gallows humor. Death is faced unapologetically and straightforward-a very refreshing change from books that tend to either shy away from the subject, or wallow in it.

Armchair Interviews says: This is more a collection of well-written short stories than a novel, with the thread that connects are the stories at the hospice.

Hospice-----a place to die. The End. Joe O'Connell's Evacuation Plan is a beautiful contradiction to those very general concepts of human finality. For those who believe there is life after death and for those who don't, O'Connell has shown that there is life BEFORE death with each glimpse into the souls, hearts and memories of us all. Evacuation Plan reminded me of the woven potholders that my older brother and I made during our childhood-------over, under, around and through, and a final stretch to completion. Life experiences- fascinating, painful, endearing, complex, ugly, but a part of each of us, make this book a worthwhile read. Joe O'Connell's writing opens our eyes wide to see human beings rather than Hospice patients and those who are brave enough to go as far with them as mortals are allowed to go.---Eleanor Bosl, Joe's mother-in-law and very proudly, his friend.

You are in a hospice, and Rod Serling walks in and asks you to tell him a story. If you had to pick one event out of your life to tell him about, what would it be? Evacuation Plan, by Texas writer Joe M. O'Connell, is a collection of stories told to the novel's protagonist, Matt, who is a screenwriter working in a hospice so he can collect material. The occupants of the hospice -- dying residents, their family members, and the hospice staff -- are like the tattoos of Ray Bradbury's Illustrated Man, each one offering a tale that stands out in their lives. Like the loser who stares at himself in childhood pictures until the pictures come to life. Or the guy who gambled his wife in a game of Monopoly at his murderer father's Christian home for the deranged. Or how fate undid the fate of a young unwed father-to-be. These are stories of reflection, of the best day in one's life, the worst day, the turning points, and the close calls, some joyous, some sad, some bizarre. Not the stuff one would discuss on a first date or a job interview. The surreal atmosphere of the hospice, where angels might be eavesdropping, drops the guard of the storytellers, and sincerity prevails. Evacuation Plan is both entertaining and thought provoking, and it is a wonderful book.