United States Books

I like the fact that this was written by Dale, Jr not just someone elses words.

This book was great. I enjoyed the descriptions of all of the tracks that Jr. raced at and how he talked to his dad and Matt Kenseth about things that were happening at any one moment. I also enjoyed hearing how him and Tony Jr. have such an honest relationship. They may yell at each other during a race on the radio, but after the race is over they are able to go back to being cousins/friends again. They leave it all on the racetrack. Very well written book! A must for any Jr. fan!

This book is great! It is just like you are sitting and talking to him. It seems to be word for word what Dale was tring to say.

WAS A GREAT BOOK AND AM GLAD I'VE GOT IT NOW THAT HE IS LEAVING DEI

I really enjoyed reading about his experience as a driver. It is well written and not boring. Which it could have been since it is always hard to write about work. I loved watching his father race and now I get to watch him.

Flight possesses a seductive mystique and "Fate is the Hunter" is one of the few books that has ever really truly captured flight's essence.

It is not only pilots that look skyward at the sound of an aircraft or slow down a little as they drive past an airfield. Similarly, Gann captures what is almost intangible and presents it to the reader with an immaculate style that will engross all who read it.

Gann carefully blends the worlds of the philosophical and aeronautical. In this mix, the reader looks out from the cockpit to at times see better within themselves.

A true classic.

Owen Zupp. Author: "Down to Earth"

www.owenzupp.com
DOWN TO EARTH: A Fighter Pilot's Experiences of Surviving Dunkirk, The Battle of Britain, Dieppe and D-Day

This is the memoir of one of the first 300 airline pilots in America. It tells the story of the development of the airline industry and the Air Transport Command during World War II. It is well-written with wit and pathos. I enjoyed the read.

One will see why this was and remains one of the best works of fiction in any genre, but especially aviation. A great book that every pilot has in the bookcase. I also highly recommend, Flying North South East and West,
a non-fiction book that I think is destined to become an aviation classic.
Flying North South East and West: Arctic to the Sahara,

This book reads about as exiting as the monotone drone of a window box fan on a hot sweaty summer night. Gann's style seems didactic to say the least. Muddling through the first chapter I fell asleep and woke up just in time to learn of a near miss in the plane Gann was flying. However in all fairness, most books are written like this, full of details and tangents before coming to the point. Who can get through Moby Dick or Les Miserables without wondering where the authors are going? One should only read books like these if he has a bad case of insomia.

If one is looking for the plot to the movie: Fate Is The Hunter, forget it. This book has almost nothing in common with the excellent screenplay written by Harold Maud except for the title and some flashbacks. Of course it is always a disappointment when the movies don't follow the books, which are usually better than the movies; this case being one of the exceptions.

The paperback book is not an abridged version of the hardcover. So don't try searching for a used copy as I did. It's just a waste of time and money. Quite frankly, I'm sorry I bought the book.

This is one of those books that has a sneak ending - best appreciated by reading through at a steady rate (which only makes sense once the climax of the book is revealed). The stories, anecdotes and tales seem almost trite and mundane - but build to the showdown, for me a life lesson. Flying is revealed for the joy it is, for its wonder, the thrill of a good landing when one has fought the good fight aloft in peril of ending badly. Gann wrote the thing with a purpose - and it wasn't to entertain you. He is like a grandfather with good advice, and he hits you with a zinger to make the point. You will be grateful, either gender, any station, rich or poor.

I have read this book 3 times. After the first I had it stolen so bought it again. I am fascinated by the history of Vietnam and it's struggles it has much to teach us for the present. I'm not a helicopter pilot, never will be although I too like Mason wanted to fly. Some will have differing recollections of events particularly this one, but that's okay. I was able to lose myself in the story that is expertly told. Having been in close quarter combat I understood where he was coming from. I continue to study and have read some good accounts but this will always remain one of my favourites.

Don't read this book if you're looking for an over the top Rambo/Braddock conquer S.E. Asia single-handedly comic strip. If you want to learn a little bit about what it was like to fly a Huey in a strange land during an incomprehensible time, read this book. Read it then give it to someone else to read.

Read it in six days. Kept my interest. Hope Mason's life is going better these days.

As the cover says, "The best book to come out of Vietnam". This is a hard hitting book which is very well described. Approx. 50 pages in, you are already riding in the chopper with 'Bob' Mason. A sorry tale but a very true one.

I finished reading Chickenhawk last night just a few minutes after midnight, July 4, 2008. I feel like I oughta apologize to its author, Bob Mason, for taking 25 years to "discover" his excellent account of one man's horrific wartime experiences in Vietnam over 40 years ago. Sam Hynes, author of the equally excellent WWII pilot's memoir, Flights of Passage, once told me that one of the most important ingredients in a memoir is that the narrator be likeable. Chickenhawk has that most vital element, for Bob Mason is as likeable a guy as you'll find in the literature of war, and his prose is absolutely real and riveting as he tells of his whirling descent into the madness that was Vietnam. His final chapter summarizes the kind of confusing nightmare his life became upon his return home, as he struggled to understand and survive this thing now commonly known as PTSD. I like this guy. In fact I like him well enough that I will try to find a copy of his out-of-print sequel to Chickenhawk. It may take a while, but I'll be back to comment on that one too. In the meantime, I urge anyone who enjoys good writing of any kind to read this book. It's the real deal. - Tim Bazzett, author of SoldierBoy: At Play in the ASA (RatholeBooks.com)

Loved it!! Too funny all the way around and so typically southern. I know these guys from way back and they are just as funny everyday. Radio show is a hoot!!

My family has enjoyed everything about the book and CD. We appreciate the Christian witness of Rick and Bubba.

if you are not familiar with there two guys - this book is a must have. just 2 "good ole boys". try it - you'll like it!

This book is really funny but the best chapters are the last three chapters where each of the men explain how their lives have changed since they received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Excellent reading!!

If you need a laugh you will enjoy the tales of life taken from the Author's family. It is hard to find really good, clean, and funny stories about family life and these two are the best in the entertainment industry today. The people is Alabama and surrounding state who can get their radio program are very fortunate.

I nearly fell asleep while reading this book. It only gets more than 1 star from me because of the somewhat predictable plot twist at the end.

This book is the first chapter book to interest my six year old. The characters, five sisters, each have their own personalities which are drawn in detail and carried through all of their adventures. The stories are sweet, focusing on everyday life in a poor jewish family at the turn of the century in New York (on the lower east side). The traditions will be familiar to an educated jewish reader but the setting just diferent enough to make it interesting. My daughter demands it every night and now cant sleep without her nightly dose of "naughty Henny and her sisters."

This book is just as entertaining as it was when I read it as a child! The book arrived quickly, in fantastic condition. Thanks!

Sydney Taylor's classic book for middle readers is set in the Lower East Side of New York City and depicts the life of a traditional Jewish family in the early 20th century. All-of-A-Kind Family is the first in a series of novels about the lively family and is a sweet, charming read. The story takes the reader through most of year and involves not just the family but their friends and acquaintances, too. The book opens with a chapter about going to the library, and the children's librarian (or "library lady," as the girls like to call her) is a gentle, recurring presence. The children's adventures include a trip to the market, scarlet fever and an outing to Coney Island, where one of the girls gets temporarily, and happily, lost. Meanwhile the story meanders through a year of Jewish holidays and teaches the reader a little about each one. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Shabbat and how Taylor contrasts the hubbub of shopping and preparations with the simple serenity of the day itself. The family relationships struck me as very true and believable- for example, Papa's ambivalence regarding the present the girls get for his birthday and his quick turnaround struck me as realistic and human. I can imagine any parent reacting the way he did initially and then rallying in the end. I appreciate Taylor's honesty about her characters throughout the book, too. It's a great book for anyone and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series and sharing in the further adventures of this fun, busy family.

All-of-a-Kind Family was a turning point in the history of Judaic children's literature - the first mainstream book with Jewish characters! In memory of author Sydney Taylor, the Association of Jewish Libraries gives out the Sydney Taylor Book Award each year to the best in Judaic children's literature. See lists of winners at www.sydneytaylorbookaward.org.

Also, you can hear an interview with Jo Taylor Marshall, the daughter of Sydney Taylor, on The Book of Life podcast's October 2007 episode "Catch Me a Classic!" Jo shares memories of the real people who became the characters in the series. Tune in at www.bookoflifepodcast.com!

I found this book to be very well written and interesting I discovered things about Lucille Ball that I did not know. It held my interest from beginning to end. If you are a fan of I Love Lucy you will enjoy this book I highly recommend it to everyone.

I picked this book up on a recommendation from someone who used to work on the I Love Lucy Show (Dann Cahn). It was fantastic! Written by Lucy herself, it really focused on her feelings and thoughts early on. Once I started I couldn't put it down.

Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball was an autobiography she wrote but never published. Her daughter Lucie found the manuscript and decided to publish it almost a decade after her mother's death. Lucille Ball was a comic gem, she did everything so perfectly. This book is good but some of the parts seem empty so I can't give this book 5 stars. Ball talks about her modeling days, how she met and fell in love with Desi Arnaz, her hit t.v. show and becoming a businesswoman when she was highly criticized for being too tough. Check this good summer read out sometime, enjoy!

I would recommend this book to anyone who is a Lucy fan. Knowing that it is an autobiography makes it more interesting. You can almost hear her voice as you read through the lines. Her life wasn't all roses. Lots of pictures for us to enjoy. Get the book. You won't put it down.

I quite enjoyed this one. It is Lucy's "lost" autobiography--that is, it was only discovered and published after her death in 1989. It was found tucked away in the files of her former attorney, discovered when her children were processing her estate. Apparently, Lucy had begun an "as told to" book by dictating for two years to a talented secretary who transcribed her tapes and even traveled to her hometown to interview her childhood friends for their memories. The resulting product is the history of Lucy from her birth in 1911 to Christmas of 1962. It is written in the present tense, and many of the readers who knew her commented that it was in her "own voice." When Lucie got to listen to the tapes, she even discovered that her mother had been accurately quoted for once! A warm picture emerges of an ambitious but essentially normal comedienne who was very family-oriented and hard-working. Her father died before she had a chance to know him, but she was raised lovingly by her mother and maternal grandparents. She goes through stints of modeling and starring in movies, about which time she meets Desi Arnaz. He played the Cuban firecracker to her more low-key character, and the sparks flew. They went on together to produce the most beloved television show of all time and to rule over the empire of Desilu Productions. But they found themselves not too compatible in the end--he was working too hard and given to explosive rages, and his drinking and many infidelities didn't help matters any. He humiliated her publically on many occasions, and that was why she eventually wanted a divorce. But she remained fond of him, and put this book away because she was afraid that its revelations would hurt him. She went on to meet and marry Gary Morton and found happiness with him for many years until her death. But Gary is only a small part of this book--you walk away struck by what Lucy and Desi achieved together that neither could have achieved alone.

This book was given to me to read when I took my first fire fighter class. My instructor loaned me her copy and I ended up buying my own copy. The tragic events detailed in this book led me into teaching fire prevention and making sure that a tragedy such as this never happens again.

I have recommended this book to several people both in and outside of the fire service. Everyone that I know who have read it have been touched by this story. I have also given this book as a gift to several students taking their first steps into the fire service so that they never forget the impact a tragic fire can have.

I love to read and I feel that this is one of the best books I have ever read. I am also a firefighter and decided to read this book because it had to do with a historic fire, little did I know that I would love this book for much more than historic and educational reasons. This book was very well written and showed all aspects of this event from the firefighters to the victims themselves. I would recomden this book to anyone who wants a good read, as well as to anyone who is interested in fire history.

This was a fascinating book. I bought it to read on a trip, because of the excellent ratings. We were stuck in a plane on a runway in Dallas for 6 hours. The wait seemed much shorter, because I was thoroughly involved in reading this book.

I highly recommend it.

There are some hard parts to get through describing the fire, but you'll appreciate the Chicago history, the history around the event, what it did to the surrounding neighborhood and how it changed fire codes in the U.S. and likely the world. Your children are safer today because of what happened to these kids.

The book also made me replace all of my smoke detectors!

This is one Chicago tragedy that resonates with me strongly. My former attorney, recently deceased, was a survivor of the deadly fire at Our Lady of Angels Catholic School.

Despite our shared interest in history, he never spoke of the fire during the twenty years in which I knew him. Last year, I found a web site maintained by survivors of the fire and questioned him about the inclusion of his name and that of his sister on the list. His sole response was that the entries were correct. Both had attended school on December 1, 1958, the date of the fire. Our brief conversation proceeded no further. My friend was visibly uncomfortable and I did not make press him with additional inquiries.

Having read this well written account of the fire and the arson investigation, I can understand why my friend preferred to change the subject. This book is compelling, but it is not for the faint of heart. The descriptions contained in "To Sleep With Angels" will haunt and disturb you. You may not be able to read the book without pausing to weep.
I could not read the book in a single sitting.

It is difficult to forget any of the tragic events described in "To Sleep With the Angels." In no particular order, the random images include a father, who rushed to the school with a ladder to rescue trapped children, watching his own son perish in a cloud of toxic smoke as the ladder was too short to reach a high window; a sick ten year old girl had a premonitory dream, but within a few hours the same child felt much better and asked her mother to let her attend school after recess; from an upper floor window, frightened children recognized an adult neighbor, the owner of the local candy store, and began shouting at the woman and begging her to help save them. The terrible list goes on and on as the authors relate the individual memories and recollections of many of the survivors, the families of the victims, the witnesses and the investigators.

More than ninety persons perished that on that cold December afternoon. In addition to ninety-two students, three nuns were also killed in the burning building. A majority of the victims succumbed on account of smoke inhalation. In the aftermath of the fire, a national campaign was launched to improved fire safety at schools throughout the USA.

Almost as painful as the fire itself was the ultimate fate of many of the survivors. Following the tragedy, many local residents began to move away from their formerly beloved parish. Some people would describe the exodus of the families from the blue collar West Side neighborhood as white flight, but others believed that it was simply too painful for many parents and children to continue living in close proximity to the school where their loved ones had died. They needed to find new surroundings in which to live rather than be reminded of the tragedy on a daily basis. There were far too many unanswerable questions: How many additional lives might have been saved if a set of doors had been closed? How many children would have been spared if the fire had occurred fifteen minutes later after the three o'clock dismissal bell? Why wasn't the fire alarm bell sounded at the school more quickly? Firefighters felt that they could have saved many more lives if they had been given the correct building address and had arrived on the scene four minutes sooner.

No one was ever prosecuted for the crime of arson in connection with the suspicious fire. A juvenile offender set the fire, but he could not be tried under Illinois law since the crime occurred before his thirteenth birthday. This same minor was subsequently tried and convicted for a series of arsons committed in suburban Cicero, where his family moved after the fire at Our Lady of the Angels. The authors posit that church and civil authorities sought to shield the identity of the boy on account of his minority. This explanation is wholly credible.

After my friend's funeral, his two sisters related that their brother regularly attended memorial masses held to honor those who died in the fire at Our Lady of the Angels. The elder sister, who had also attended the school on the day of the fire, exited the building safely. Her brother was also escaped without serious injury. Their father heard a radio broadcast concerning the fire while driving his car and he was permitted to enter the police cordon to look for his children. He was unaware that they had arrived home safely during the confusion. There was a great deal of crying when the children and parents were reunited at their home that afternoon. These personal stories are not repeated in the book.
************************************************************************
In a bizarre and equally disturbing development, one of the authors of this book was convicted of arson after setting a fire to a storage building opposite St. Benedict's Catholic Church on the North side of Chicago in June of 2005. Thankfully, only property damage resulted from the fire. David Cowan was said to be despondent after losing his janitorial job. The defendant, who was also a former suburban firefighter, was sentenced to serve a three year prison term in December of that same year. He has been paroled. Ironically, he was also the author a book entitled, "Great Chicago Fires" and had reported on fires for various newspapers.

The book, In the Company of Heroes by Michael J. Durant, describes the life of a prisoner of war in Somalia. The fact that the officer actually was the prisoner, makes the book an autobiography. Durant wrote this book in hopes of bringing his life and death situations as a prisoner of war, to the real world. He wanted to explain how difficult life truly was and the experiences he went through on a day-to-day basis. He wanted everyone to see eye-to-eye on ideas such as war. By writing this book, those hopes can be expressed. This shows that there are many hardships but you have to persevere no matter how painful it may be.
Michael J. Durant was born on July 23, 1961 in Berlin, New Hampshire. He then went on to enter the U.S army in August 1979. Michael was Chief Warrant Officer 3 in the United States Army 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. In the war, he was captured and held prisoner on October 3, 1993. He was very high up on the list of positions in the army. The importance of his job also came with many responsibilities. For example, he had to learn and teach how to fly helicopters. Up until the war in Somalia, he led a pretty normal life. He has a wife named Lisa, and a son named Joey. Devastated to leave his family, he got prepared to fight for his country, which is something he was meant to do. His adventurous character has led him to do great things.
Michael J. Durant did a fantastic job writing this book. He tells the story with great detail. This true story implants extreme images in your head. Coming from a first hand source, the story is even more meaningful. It makes you feel like you were actually there.
Many positives were found throughout the story. One example would be how it shows Durant's life before and after he encounters his captivity. It was interesting to learn about the daily struggles he had to go through in order to survive and how different his survival instincts were before the war. The book is very suspenseful and keeps its interest throughout every chapter. The only negative would be that the book is long and at certain points, difficult to read for younger people.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves suspense, intensity, and life or death situations.

I recently purchased this book, and I wish there were words enough to relay just how great it is. In the Company of Heros illistrates brilliantly the account of Night Stalker pilot Mike Durant, and his experience in somolian captivity. Mr. Durant may be a pilot by trade, however his story and how he tells it are amazing. This book is a great buy for anyone, but it is a MUST READ for any Army aviation pilots or aircrewmen.

A riveting true story, well written. If you didn't already respect the skill and bravery of the US armed forces, you will after reading this book.

Excellent,excellent book. I'd recommend reading Black Hawk Down first for an overview of the battle, but even if you don't, either way, this is a great book. Mr Durant just tries to tell it like it is, how it happened, and tell the stories of his fallen comrades, who are the "heroes" from the title.

I was in the 101st, in fact I was at Campbell when Durant was flying non SOG missions, and I went to Panama, so his career flashbacks were cool to read as I could relate. But even for someone who may not have been there, the flashbacks provide a backdrop for who he is, who the Night Stalkers were, and the mentality of these SOG operators.

Fantastic read, highly recommend.

Durant's story takes us from Black Hawk Down and gives us a persalized look into his ordeal in Somalia. But he also gives an itimate look into the lives and beliefs of his captors. This is must read book for anyone interested in the survival of the human spirit.

Jeanne Boylan could be a movie star or model. She is tall, slim, and blonde. She began her artistic career by doodling in notebooks as a child. Her art career is really based on getting serial killers, mass murderers, and criminals brought to justice. Her relationship to Marc Klaas, the father of murdered victim Polly Klaas who became an activist seeking justice for the victims. The book's narrative is taken by the author's perception and experiences. The Smith case rendered the same feeling that the mother was involved in her sons's abductions and murders. Reading about how Jeanne and Marc learned about their fates were both horrifying. They still had hope that a mother would not have gone so far or over the edge of the unthinkable. We all think that the criminals can be monsters but Susan Smith was also the mother to two innocent young boys, Michael and Alexander. Nobody believed her story of an abduction in a rural road in the middle of the night. Most motives behind carjacking is the car itself. Carjackers don't want two babies in the backseat. Sadly, a carjacker would have probably returned Michael and Alexander safely somewhere but Susan's story never washed out. Her sons' bodies were in the bottom on John D. Long Lake. Of course, Boylan writes about her failed marriage, her background in Montrose, Colorado, and how she became known as the woman behind criminal portraits which led to the captures of the Unabomber or Ted Kaczynski and others.

I became interested in this author after seeing her speak about eyewitness memory on the Oprah Winfrey Show. I found the book, read it and then noticed a composite drawing in the Elizabeth Smart case that seemed to bear no likeness to the man arrested for the kidnapping. Jeanne Boylan's name was periodically associated with the case and I felt let down that she'd so badly erred in doing the less than stellar drawing. (Though now we know that the man was caught because the Smart family realized his religious name, announced it to the public and then were given real photos by the man's own family that were aired on TV which then resulted in his subsequent identification and quick arrest.)

Now, in more recent news reports, I found out that Jeanne Boylan actually interviewed the younger sister of Elizabeth about her memory of the abduction night and that the poor suspect drawing the media was showing was not from her interviews, but was from a local portrait person and was not taken from the little sister's sighting the night of the abduction but rather was taken from the family who knew the man and had spent many hours with him. Now I understood why the descrepancy.

I felt relief. I momentarily thought Jeanne Boylan had lost her skills. Now I understand the difference between her interview and the drawing that is now linked to the case but does not look like the kidnapper.

I look forward to the sequel of 'Portraits of Guilt' and to reading more about what happens to eyewitness's memories when the sightings are endured during moments of fright and fear and how that forces their vision very deep into the recesses of their mind as it did for Elizabeth's little sister.

Praise the Lord that with help and encouragement, Elizabeth's little sister finally remembered the religious name with the help of the loving Smart family, the apparently astute police and Jeanne Boylan who all had fiercely guarded the young child's evolving memory while it was gradually surfacing so that the kidnapper was finally caught. Good things come to those who wait!

I found this book on Oprah's website under "Oprah's Books" and think highly of her choices so ordered it. I'm happy I did. It was a fast moving, compelling read and gave me a view into a world I knew nothing about. I feel entertained, educated and wiser from reading it. What more could you ask... I endorse the book, author and Oprah's good taste.

I am a reseacher in the area of human memory. My university studies and thesis are in the area of crime victim recall and memory malleability. I was given Miss Boylan's book by a fellow doctoral student who said simply, "Read this. This woman gets it."

To my astonishment, this was true and to know that there is a woman struggling essentially all alone to enlighten police about the seriousness of memory malleability made me want to jump into the pages of this book and yell to the police she works with that there is scientific data backing up every word she says about this topic.

Miss Boylan unfortunately writes in too kind a fashion, seemingly concerned about offending the masses, but sometimes creating change requires the proverbial 2 X 4 to create the desired impact. Although I appreciate Miss Boylan's subtle and polite manner, my only complaint about this book and her story is that she should and could have been much more hard hitting in her critique of what has historically gone wrong in criminal investigations. With what she's experienced, she is entitled to be direct.

With the knowledge we in the academic world have now of how memory works, there is no excuse for the mistakes made in past cases to continue to take place. Jeanne Boylan should scream her message and take her lumps. I'd rather see her save lives than to worry about winning a popularity contest. She can speak from inside the world of police, whereas "us" in our ivory towers, don't have access to the real world as she does.

Boylan relied on us to give her the foundation for her work and my predecessor's findings of three decades now, but those of us doing the empirical research have to rely on people like her to deliver our findings to the point of practical application in the police world. She can be the go-between from our world to inside real life criminal investigations.

Overall, Portraits of Guilt is a great book, great 'on the mark' insights into crime victim memory and some lessons in Boylan's stories that had better be paid attention to before we lose more lives such as Polly Klaas. (Her book is dedicated to the Klaas girl's memory.)

I give this book a five star rating for it's general level of readibility and for her stunning insights into trauma victim memory malleability, but Miss Boylan, if you write a second book, and I hope you do, next time, take the gloves off and try to come out swinging.

I've read a lot of good books about healing from trauma and the effects trauma has upon memory. I've also read a lot of books about the fallibility of memory that do not correctly take into account the actual experience of the trauma. Jeanne Boylan has succeeded in writing the first book that accurately addresses both sides of the understanding of memory. She clearly illustrates the way that traumatic memory can be malleable in the presence of suggestion. It is through the insight of Jeanne Boylan's work that we can keep the innocent people out of jail and the guilty people can be handled accordingly.

She succeeds at what she does because she has both a natural ability and a deep understanding of trauma and memory. She also succeeds because she knows how to reach the heart. She works from her intuition as well as her logical understanding. Her kind and gentle nature is a true asset in the work that she does, and she could not achieve what she has achieved without it. In addition to all of this she has the added gift of being an incredible artist. Jeanne Boylan was born to do the work that she does; it is an inborn gift, which was further honed by her own personal experience of trauma and surviving a crime.

Jeanne Boylan describes traumatic memory as being like a fifty-cent piece that has been tossed below eight feet of water. The memory gets buried by the intense emotional trauma, but at the same time is locked into memory. As the emotions arise our minds protect us by blurring the image, like the movement of water. We can still see it, but it is distorted. With the right approach the memory of the trauma can be brought back to the eyewitness's conscious memory in it's original condition, just as the fifty-cent piece can be retrieved from the water fully intact.

Jeanne Boylan works with survivors to draw near perfect portraits of the criminals. Her technique is the art form. She says, "The answers to uncovering memory reside in understanding the powerful inner workings of the human mind-- and more importantly, in the power of the human heart. (p. 11)" She says "The higher the degree of personal trauma, the harder the mind works to discard or bury the image, but, also, the more likely it will have been encoded into memory in the first place, even if it is housed at a much deeper level of recall... Sometimes if we can coach the conscious mind to move aside we can still access the original untainted image--if there is reason enough for it to have been retained in memory. (p.13)" It is the release of emotions, no matter what form, that helps reach the image. She uses an interview technique, which brings the person into a safe space in order to access the memory without the emotions blocking it, and she uses carefully worded questions to prevent suggestions from distorting the original memory.

During her chapters about the devastating kidnap and murder of twelve year old Polly Klass, she provides new insight into how to recognize the veracity of an eyewitness account. She explains that when witnesses remember the trauma or the attacker differently that this is actually a sign that they are telling the truth because no two people remember an experience identically. The discrepancies help to validate and preserve the images and details of the memory for later needs (as long as suggestion has not been introduced). There is usually one stronger witness, however that witness will often have a degree of self-doubt that can be increased when she/he encounters discrepancies among the other witnesses. Jeanne Boylan was the first person on the case of Polly Klass to treat the witnesses (also twelve years old) with the validation and support that they needed.

The chapter about the abduction and torture of Sister Dianna Ortiz was the most powerful aspect of the book, for me. Anyone who has experienced a similar trauma will find a lot of healing and peace in reading this chapter. We watch Sister Dianna Ortiz work through the intense PTSD, become empowered, speak out and overcome the accusations that her experiences were a figment of her imagination. Sister Dianna Ortiz speaks of her healing, "Healing comes in many forms. I know I will always carry the memory of what happened to me on November second, 1989. For more than six and one-half years I have allowed my Guatemalan torturers and Alejandro to haunt me. Many times, I've felt like they danced within me. Many times I've felt that if I got close to anyone, I was going to contaminate them with the evilness that they left inside me. But today, I can sit here and say that that evil does not exist inside me anymore, and that is because of the work that I was able to accomplish with Jeanne Boylan. (p.282)... The images of my torturers and Alejandro have always stayed within me, and I have held myself responsible for the horrible things that happened on that November day, but today, because I was able, with the help of Jeanne Boylan, to put a face to these monsters, I can put them away from me. They no longer live in my soul. Until I faced them, I could never be free. (p283)"

In the next chapter called Awakenings Jeanne Boylan says, "Though I knew instinctively the importance of freeing a victim of the evil left from an attack, never before had I realized so clearly the emotional power that floods the soul when the residual grip of an assailant is finally loosened, and gently removed from the heart. (p. 286)"

Jeannie Boylan ends the book with the conclusion she left us wanting to hear since the Prologue. She weaves in her own experience, and powerfully does for herself what she has already done for so many others.

I first read these books when I was in 6th grade and every now and then I still reread them and i am 25 now. Even though they are for young adults I have always loved these books and will continue to read them over and over.

I bought this book in a second hand book it is a briellient story and enjoyed reading it very much.

I first read these in high school and now atleast every 2 or 3 years I read them again. This time around (I'm 27 now) when I had the urge to read them I couldn't find them. I really wish they would make them into a movie trilogy! It's just a great read if you love nature and magic and remember being 16 and in highschool. I hope I read this until I am an old grandma and can get lost in time and pretend I am cassie!

I love this trilogy. I've loved it since I was about ten, and I still love it. It has pride of place on my bookshelf, and every now and again, I go back and re-read it.

In this first book, Cassie Blake, a highschool junior, finds herself suddenly uprooted when her mother moves them back to the tiny Massachusetts town of New Salem. They move in with her grandmother, and before long, a girl at Cassie's school has been murdered and Cassie has taken her place in the mysterious 'Club', a group of teenage witches who can trace their lineage all the way back to the days of the Salem witchcraft trials. Add to that is the menacing and beautiful Faye, Cassie's growing attraction to her best friend's boyfriend, and the search for the coven's lost Master Tools, and you have yourself a gripping and fast-paced start to a thrilling young adult trilogy.

That's not to say that the story doesn't have its problems, one of which is the somewhat underdeveloped secondary characters. Even this is excusable, however, given that there are eleven of them in the coven itself, not to mention various relations and townspeople. If nothing else, most of the coven members are clearly defined and given at least a few pages of close attention, such as the bike ride with Deborah in the second novel. Overall, a very satisfactory read, and well worth buying.

When I was about 13 or 14 I read and re-read these book over and over again. I even recorded them on tape so that I could listen to it while I was out and about.

I loved this trilogy.

Everyone can relate to Cassie in feeling different in a group and in this day and age magic is really popular, so this trilogy is the best for those that are coming of age in this time period when we are obsessed with darkness and magic, etc.

I plan on buying a new set because I wore my old set (given that was 13 years ago) out.