New Jersey Books

Review by Timothy Taylor: Akibavar@aol.com Jersey Blue is the only book I can think of that amuses and arouses simultaneously. There are some wildly perverse sex scenes involving riding crops and twin sisters who are exceptionally close, but the general tone of the book is good humor; sometimes in the midst of the most outrageous activity one finds oneself laughing out loud! The story takes the reader through back swamp Jersey history, but never loses sight of the comical yet heroic lusts that drive humanity. I recommend this book to anyone who would like to read a unique and extra spicy historical novel.

This book captures the very spirit of Jersey Central Lines railroad. The scenery combined with William Brennan's keen eye for photography brings the now defunct railroad back to life. For those of us who witnessed the "Big Little Railroad", this book is sure to bring back many fond memories. For those who didn't, it is a great history lesson in a railroad era gone by.

This book is the best I have read. Baseball should let JOHN ROCKER back in the game without suspension. ROCKER is just an ol' redneck that was telling the truth! YANKEE FAN 4 life!

Henry Beck was a newspaperman (and minister) who was interested in the local history of New Jersey; he authored many books on the topic. This was his third in a series. (I believe all the books have been in print since they first came out in the 1930s.) The first two volumes dealt with forgotten towns of southern NJ, and for this one he moved a bit north to the central part of the state. The format in all the books remained the same: one location per chapter, give its history, and make things personal by describing a visit to the place by Beck with often an "expert" on the area. Usually a photograph or two accompanies each chapter. It's a good format, and it works well.

Beck travels to such places in this book as Scrabbletown, Ellisdale, Amwell, Barnegat, Fiddler's Creek, and Tennent among others. The chapters are much longer than in the two previous books. The reason for this is that earlier he chose a spot and stuck pretty rigidly to it while here he wanders far and wide from each place highlighted per chapter. The book feels much more expansive for it.

Anyone interested in forgotten towns and local history in NJ will be delighted with any and all of Beck's books. I've spent many a Sunday afternoon following in his footsteps checking out the places he writes about (most of them very much changed in that last 70 years). Beck is a storehouse of information and a lot of fun to read, too. (The book's original title was much cooler: "Fare to Midlands," changed by RU Press for fear the public wouldn't get the irony and only think it a put down.)

I bought this wonderfully illustrated book while living in Hoboken (where much of it is set,) and after reading it again, was surprised at its freshness. It's still amusing and apropos. If you find a copy, I suggest you buy it.

This is a well written first hand account of the suffering of the people of Jersey during the period of Nazi occupation during World War II. It gives many details of the horrors suffered by the citizens of this Channel Island, part of the U.K. Careful study shows that even with the taking of this small island, that Berlin could never get the signals straight. Many people of Jersey fled to the U.K. and when the Nazi authorities took control, they routed out Jews and others that they were opposed to in order to use their goods, etc for themselves

Without this great book, we would have no fantastic collection of the faces of jews that have impacted New Jersey's history. I was mesmorized-staring into faces long gone-storefronts of jewish businesses which are now completley different shops. I especially liked reading about the young Jews at the New Jersey Shore. This fantastic book makes people living in New Jersey realize that the jews they see walking around have deep histories; many rooted in the holocaust, all certiantly impacted by it. A brilliant and beautiful pictorial history of the Jews living in New Jersey and their geneality.

Having grown up in that special neighborhood that was Weequahic in the forties and fifties, I highly recommend this to anyone wishing to sample the flavor of a neighborhood that continues to evoke memories by the dozens.

My kindergarten photograph of 1948, and Chancellor Avenue School graduation photo of 1956, were wonderful to see in print. I cherish the memories of those times, and encourage others to enjoy this book. The book will most definitely impart an understanding of what a vibrant, cohesive, and genuine community those of us who lived there were lucky to share.

I have been researching the John (Pilgrim) Ogden line for 30 years and now I know why I had so much difficulty trying to understand this genealogy. The book is excellent. It provides some much needed answers to the question surrounding Wheeler's, "Ogden Genealogy" and how much of the information in the beginning of that text is false. No wonder we are all having so many problems with this family line. The only downside to the book is that there isn't enough information on the Ogdens of England which would substantiate the line going back much further than 1600. However, 1600 is nothing to laugh at. Anyone want to write a book on John Ogden of Rye. It turns out that's my ancestral line, not the Pilgrim's. These two were cousins and I wish there had been more information than one small paragraph in the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone researching the Ogden family line.

I bought this book looking for information on the new features JScript .NET since I need to migrate my company's site to ASP .NET. This book covers all of the new features in the language and provides lots of examples that show how to use them. The author also covers migrating a sample site from ASP to ASP .NET and goes an extra mile by demonstrating how to migrate from using ADO to ADO.NET.

XML is integrated into all aspects of the .NET Framework - I was glad to see that the author discusses XML throughout the book, provides an appendix called 'XML Primer', and also discusses using XML with the new ADO .NET DataSet object (sort of like an always disconnected ADO Recordset object) within a Windows service written in JScript .NET.

Since JScript .NET is now fully object oriented, there are three chapters that cover Object oriented design and analysis. The author uses UML (the Unified Modeling Language) throughout the discussions, and provides two very useful appendices: UML Notation which describes elements of UML diagrams, and ' Translating from UML to JScript.NET Code' which shows how easy it is to convert a UML diagram into functioning JScript .NET code.

The book is well thought out and the samples are very practical. I recommend this book to developers with some programming background - even casual programming. Part two of the book, covered in five chapters, is a JScript primer for those that aren't familiar with the language. This book works well as a reference and it covers more than just programming using the JScript .NET language in enough detail to be as useful as three books in one!