New Jersey Books

I didn't know what to expect in this book and it certainly surprised me. While the Abbadon Inn is central to the story, it's also a horror story that's very much about the sea. Another reviewer mentioned Jaws, and if you imagine that story mixed with supernatural horror you get some idea of where this book goes. Set in the early 90s, it feels like one of the classic horror novels of the day, with great story telling and twists and turns everywhere. Highly Recommended.

Don't waste your money -- or more importantly, time -- on this dull, insipid rehash of JAWS crossed with THE SHINING, padded out with more dull writing and never-explained plot threads (that tantalize but ultimately lead to nothing) than you can shake a meathook at.

Blaine's setting is the Abaddon Inn, built by one Nicholas Abaddon. Abaddon was the name of the Angel of the Bottomless Pit -- Apollyon in Greek. Give me a break -- a guy named after a demon! Why not just name him Sam Satan or Larry Lucifer or Mikey Mephistopheles or Billy Beelzebub? This is the sort of lameness that mars too much cheap horror fiction -- and DROWNED NIGHT is as low-rent as it gets, folks. It's right up there with THE AMITYVILLE HORROR or that BLAIR WITCH nonsense.

I was lured into reading this tripe by the promise of the Inn's evil past spilling over into the present. The first two pages are a collage of postcards and newspaper clippings that hint of awful disasters in the past -- and that the inn's builder somehow lived on past his death. Well, don't put too much stock in those promises -- they're political promises, made to get your support (i.e., purchase money) -- then they vanish like the snows of yesteryear. NONE of this stuff ever appears in the rest of the novel.

Instead, we get some unnamed, unexplained Mysterious Undersea Power that somehow takes control of people and sharks and makes them do nasty things. No reason -- apparently the MUP just gets off on death. Wasted potential. Blaine sets up a mythological situation and then cops out with slasher-story stupidities. Boring characters do boring things. We have to wade through page after page of tedious banter between a little girl afraid of the ocean and her obnoxious brother. There are hints of a portentous atmosphere, but it dissipates since none of the ancient evils amount to much. We're treated to the murder of some psychic guy who, as events transpire, is the tool of the MUP. Then his ghost turns up and gets some dumbass horror writer to try to strangle an obnoxious brat. Dumbass shoots himself instead, talked out of killing by the ghost of one of the MUP's former victims, who is posing as a new waitress at the Inn. (Her cover is blown, by the way, when the Inn's manager learns the ghost lied about her references. Yup, you read that right -- the undead sometimes lie on an employment application! Wow. It staggers the imagination that this thing got into print.)

Then there's the long-drawn-out diving trauma that -- again -- ultimately leads to nothing. The guy cries a little, then unhesitatingly hops back into the water at the first opportunity and functions as if the trauma never occurred. More dull padding.

Also, we're expected to believe that a twenty-foot shark can split a forty-foot fishing boat in two "just like a toothpick."

I could go on but why bother? This book is trash. Dull, pointless trash of the sort that gives the field of weird fiction a black eye.

One thing is for certain. The byline "Chris Blaine" will serve as an adequate warning never, NEVER to read another book graced with it.

This novel offers a full plate of terrors -- a small town, a haunted hotel, sharks, missing kids, an unsuspecting family who thought they'd left their troubles behind in NYC. This is the kind of horror novel that sucks you in and won't let you go. Others may have done "shark stories" before, but this one is a wild, salty, fast-paced original! Highly recommended!

This author basically rips story line from other famous writers (i.e.-Stephen King, Peter Benchley), and submits it into an almost anthological format. You'd expect that because it's part of a trilogy that somewhere along the way, you would get the whole story of the inn and its history, but you get NOTHING. These novels skip from one decade to another with no fillers in between to tie them together. Given the chance, I wouldn't waste my money.

The Abbadon Inn has a secret and horrible history of murder. The entire town conspired to kill Jackson Bell in 1929. They thought the evil would die with Jackson. They were wrong and evil has returned....

Liz and Ted McShane arrive at the Abbadon Inn with high hopes. Ted is still traumatized from watching his partner die in a diving accident while Liz is trying to keep it together for both of them. Their two children, Megan and Daver, are bored with the isolation of the inn and Daver is apt to explore areas that perhaps should remain forever ignored. Meanwhile, the deaths have started again. Will the McShane family survive this?

DROWNED NIGHT is one of three books in a series about the Abbadon Inn. Although each book is allegedly written by Chris Blaine, each of the books is actually written by a different author using the pseudonym of the fictitious Chris Blaine. Matthew Costello is the true force behind DROWNED NIGHT.

DROWNED NIGHT starts rather sluggishly and this reviewer initially was concerned Chris Blaine had penned a rather pale version of Stephen King's THE SHINING. However, once the idiosyncrasies surrounding the Abbadon Inn begin emerging, the reader is fully hooked! The subtle layers of intrigue begin building the tension level and creating a rather clever horror novel.

The inclusion of the shark aspect provides a unique touch to DROWNED NIGHT as the evil appears omnipresent. This adds a bit of creepiness to the overall atmosphere while Ted's diving incident really drives the scenario home to the reader. Chris Blaine, aka Matthew Costello, once overcoming a slow beginning, has written a fantastic horror novel!

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

First Sentence: Joe Tenant tied the barge to the dock.

Ex-cop Jackson Donne has now been stripped of his PI license and has estranged himself from his family, including his mother with Alzheimer's.

His sister, Susan, shows up asking him to visit their mother as she has been rambling about incidents that happened to their family in 1938. Events escalate when her husband is kidnapped for ransom.

I had a hard time getting through this. At the beginning, it is very heavy on product placement--Molson beer, Coach bag, Ryder truck, Verison--which I found distracting.

As it went on, I realized there was no real character development or growth to the characters, so I had no real empathy for any of them. I tried to remind myself that the protagonist was fairly young, but he made an incredibly dumb decision at one point that nearly stopped me.

The plot is over the top. At one point, the protagonist exclaimed he found the villain's motive insane. So did I and, again, it made me want to stop reading.

The best thing about the book, for me, was the twist at the end--and that I was at the end.

There really wasn't much here for me. I am a huge detective novel fan and its possible that my idea of a P.I. novel is set at quite a higher standard after reading most of the best. White's newest novel carries somewhat of a dry storyline that has some very interesting and unbelievable twists in it. The relationship Donne shares with an unlikely character in this book, despite the family histories, is just to much of a stretch. I also felt like the characters here were very one dimensional. There was little to no character progression for any of the characters. Kudo's to White on the title though. Very smart. I think give this young man a couple of years to get his form exactly right and we can expecting good things form him. As for now this book for White is the equivelant of learning to walk.

Jackson Donne is not a happy man. He has suffered through losing his job at the police department, drug abuse and rehab. His fiancée was killed. He has lost his PI License and is working as a night security guard. Jackson is trying to rebuild his life and attend Rutgers University.

Now his sister Susan is begging him to visit his mother in the nursing home. She wants Jackson to find out more about their grandfather. Jackson and Susan's mother is suffering from Alzheimer's and keeps reliving times when she was little. She talks about her father killing a man. Jackson hasn't seen his sister in years and only wants to try to rebuild his own life and isn't interested in the past. Finally after a visit from his brother-in-law Franklin Carter, Jackson agrees to at least look into the matter.

Soon Jackson is forced to solve a mystery that occurred before he was even born in order to save what is left of his family. Susan and her husband, Franklin Carter, are both in grave danger and only answers from the past can help save them. Car bombs, blackmail and more all enter the picture.

Dave White's novels are exciting and keep you on edge all the way. I enjoyed the first Jackson Donne novel When One Man Dies, and this one tops the first.

Armchair Interviews says: Always great to find a story that is so well done.

Crimes committed in 1938 provide the impetus for White's follow up to 2007's When One Man Dies, which saw the debut of his series character, New Jersey PI Jackson Donne. This time out, members of Donne's family are threatened by a killer who bears them a grudge, which, in his mind, has its roots in the actions of one of Donne's ancestors, who made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Regardless of whether that blame is properly assigned, the madman is out to even the score, ruthlessly striking at Donne and his kin to achieve his goals.

It's hard for a lifelong New Jersey native like me to resist the charms of this book, as its action is firmly rooted in the northern part of the wondrous Garden State--White makes good use of the urban and suburban geography, accurately depicting the terrain. But that's not what makes his sophomore effort so readable and engaging. Rather, it's White's realistic depiction of family dynamics--readers will be struck by the sheer humanity on display in this novel, from Donne's strained relationship with his sister and brother in law, to the tragedy of the PI's mother's valiant but futile struggle with Alzheimer's disease, and finally, to the sacrifices that are sometimes required to keep one's family intact and safe. These factors make the book ring true, simultaneously demonstrating just how high the stakes Donne is dealing with are.

When Joe Tenant happens upon a random murder in 1938 New Jersey, it is his misfortune to be spotted by the killer. Threatening his life if he reports the incident to the police is one thing, but when the murderer makes a move against Joe's family, particularly his little daughter, Isabelle, Tenant is pushed beyond his limits. A working class man, Joe doesn't court trouble, but his instinctive response is to go after this man who crossed a line in going after Tenant's family. Forced to leave wife and daughter for their own protection, Tenant is on a mission. Years later, Isabelle is hospitalized, suffering the last stages of Alzheimer's disease, her daughter, Susan, by her side. Agitated, Isabelle calls out Joe's name, increasingly anxious as frightening memories surface. Susan contacts her brother, Jackson Donne, long estranged from the family, seeking answers to his problems in a bottle; she demands he make peace with their mother and determine the reason for Isabelle's ranting. Reluctantly, Donne agrees, but brother and sister have much to resolve between them besides their mother's fears.

Meanwhile, Susan's husband, Franklin Carter, learns that one of his restaurants has been torched. Whatever Franklin knows about who did this, he is unable to tell the truth to the cops. Before Donne can wrap his head around what his mother reveals in her fragmented lucid moments, events take on a life of their own, from the destruction of the restaurant to the random shooting of elderly victims and the cold-blooded murder of a young gang-banger. Donne understands that his mother's story holds the key to the current violence. His PI license revoked, as well as the loss of his job with the police department for bucking the system, Jackson is in a race against time, more than one life on the line. Wanting desperately to return to the solace of the bottle, Donne reaches deep to keep his promise to Susan and help her through this nightmare.

Laced with the sharp dialog and random violence that builds to a jarring climax, White sharpens his noir teeth on the non-stop action and chilling reversals of fortune in this novel, one scene tumbling into the next with deadly accuracy. Not a criticism, just an observation: much is made of White's skill in writing noir fiction ("makes classic noir new again"). He does have the rhythm and attitude down, manipulating his characters as they wise-crack their way through a hail of bullets, blood, gore and tussles with ill-intentioned, gun-totting opponents; but there is one aspect of noir that that eludes this young author, the utterly world-weary demeanor of a PI (or ex-PI) that has seen and done too much and the wry cynicism that stems from the pervasive degeneracy of the criminal world. White talks the talk, but only time and experience will tell is he will fit into those very large shoes. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

This book was very boring I had to skip thru a lot of it.
All the author talks about is the trail and does not do any research on the backgrounds of the people involved.
This book was a big dissapointment. I would not recommend it to any true crime fans.

BROKEN VOWS is the story of NJ rabbi, Fred Neulander, who arrived home to find his wife, Carol, brutally beaten to death. Neulander an upstanding leader of a large and affluent congregation, and by all accounts a charismatic and sympathetic man, maintained his innocence. But when rumors of his sexual affairs began to circulate through the congregation and eventually reached the police, that innocence became questionable. Eventually Neulander was accused of hiring a hit man, synagogue member Leonard Jenoff, to kill Carol. It was seven years after the crime that Neulander was ultimately tried for the murder.

Author Eric Francis has produced a solid account of the case. He basically approaches BROKEN VOWS as a reporter, straightforwardly presenting the story without bias and without the irritating drama that lesser writers feel the need to include. He includes a lot of material about Neulander's affair with a Philadelphia radio host, and though there is not much background material on Newlander or Carol, there is plenty on hit man Jenoff.

The only problem I have with BROKEN VOWS is that it was written before the end of Neulander's legal saga, so that the story is in effect unfinished. BROKEN VOWS is a professionally written book, and if the reader doesn't mind looking up the final disposition of Neulander's case on the web, it is well worth reading.

This crime was shocking because it involved a beloved mother and figure of a Jewish community in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. She was brutally murdered in her home by two men. The shocking twists was that it was her husband, the beloved Rabbi Neulander, who orchestrated the murder in order to avoid a divorce. The Rabbi is no saint because he was having an extramarital affair with one of his congregants, a prominent radio talk show hostess. The Neulander tragedy is sad because we don't expect this to happen so close to home. Poor Carol Neulander! all she wanted was a family and ran a successful business as well. Her murder was particularly heinous and just evil because it was just so brutal. How can a husband especially a Rabbi or even a minister do such a heinous act? He robbed his children of their mother and a community of a beloved figure. Rest in peace, Carol.

This book is concise, and well-written. There are so many stereotypes in our culture as to religious leaders; Catholic priests & sexual abuse, ministers & financial 'shenanigans', Rabbis & murder. Huh?! The latter is the reason why this crime was so shocking. The stereotype that Jews don't commit violent crimes is only that - a stereotype.
This book explains what happened to the person who is the only Rabbi in America to have ever been found guilty of murder. As the prior review stated, he was always on the make with women. This brings up the only criticism I have of this book. Why would a man who seemed to have it all: at the top of his field, making a good sum of money, adored by his congregation, a devoted wife, and 3 great children - just WHY would such a man risk everything to have his wife killed??
I think a discussion of some psychological theories would have fit well into this book. It seemed to me that the Rabbi may have been a sexual addict; if so, then he displayed compulsive behavior instead of dealing straight on with his problems. He also displayed a tremendous amount of narcissism: he told his girlfriend that he couldn't get a divorce because his congregation wouldn't accept that. It was probably more that his grandiose ego couldn't accept that; he couldn't 'fail' at anything, because he was just so 'perfect'. This theory makes sense in that, even to this day, the Rabbi denies any wrongdoing.
Fortunately, many saw through him. This came to quite a crescendo when two of his three children actually testified against him at his trial.
And, like the narcissist that he is, he is appealing his case, of course. So all the world can see, once again, that he is "perfect", of course, a completely innocent man. After all, the rest of the world who is so 'beneath him' are so inferior that they have no right to find him guilty of anything!

I found this interesting, but somewhat depressing. With the living conditions in Italy years ago and living in the States with a grandmother, mother, father and daughter was totally different than my family as I was growing up. The cooking in later life with the author and her husband were interesting.

I got this book to read on a trip to Europe. However, I didn't bring the book home with me, because I didn't deem it worthy of the space in my bag. It reads as though its writing was a cathartic experience for the author, to clear the air between her and her family memories. Unfortunately, this does not make for enjoyable reading. The writing itself is technically solid, but the subject matter left a bad taste in my mouth, as though I'd eaten something disagreeable. I came away with an overwhelming sense of disgust and hate, the same senses that pervaded the author's home as she's described it here. This book did not leave me happy or satisfied.

I felt compelled to write this after reading the other reviews because I believe that a book should be judged in accordance with it's own intentions and not by what other people think it should have been. This book is not the typical happy-family-eating-meatballs memoir, nor is it a light, breezy, funny foodie memoir. It is an exquisitely-written, ultimately loving remembrance of a family in pain. It contains great insights into the Italian immigrants' experience-- and a sober, unromanticized look at "The "Old Country" conditions from which many fled in the early 20th century. This book is highly recommended for people struggling with their own family's past, anybody who appreciates beautiful prose and memoir/autobiography, or Italian Americans wanting to explore that part of their past. Ms. DeSalvo uses food as metaphor to great effect in conveying the texture of the immigrant family's experience.

This is not a book for those wanting a light read or those who haven't honestly looked at their own growing up experiences as second-generation Americans.

Louise De Salvo courageously portrays what life was really like for many us. This is not a happy spaghetti and meatball memoir. It's gritty and at times uncomfortable reading, but well-done. Brava, Louise.

This is a well-written analysis of a much misunderstood event in western history. Lambert attempts to explain the establishment and perpetuation of the First Great Awakening in the American colonies and effectively argues his case that the event was one of deliberate planning and execution rather than a spontaneous, pervasive religious revival. The reader is drawn into Lambert's discussion of the causes and effects of the Awakening on both sides of the Atlantic and can not help making comparisons to modern evangelists attempts to spread their messages to the masses. While not of interest to all, this book is a rewarding and entertaining read. I eagerly await his next opus.

The only inventing uncovered by this book is the inventing that Frank Lambert did in weaving together what he claims are historical facts to showcase his obvious disdain for things Christian and any Christian influence on the history of the United States. He cannot possibly objectively write about something that he does not in anyway understand and that he clearly abhores. Frank Lambert fancies himself an historian but he is nothing more than a propagandist plying his craft on unsuspecting but predesposed readers.

Frank Lambert sets out to prove in this book that the Great awakening was the creation of a particular group of evangelical Christians who saw themselves as pioneers and promoters of the work of God. He contends that fiery preaching alone cannot account for the legendary status of the religious awakenings that permeated the transatlantic area of the United States fromj 1735-1745. Credit must also be given to revivalists like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and John Gillies, who knew how to use the printed word as a medium to spread their interpretation of what was happening in the colonies.

Lambert also notes the indefatigable work of Old Light clergymen such as Charles Chauncy, who vigorously opposes the revivals and their emotional excesses. These excesses, along with Whitefield's excoriating missives against parish ministers, and the eloquent anti-revivalist propaganda, helped to cool off the revival fires burning across the American landscape.

Lambert writes well and holds the attention of the reader, and he is right that the revival narratives of Prince and Edwards and others played a role in establishing the "legendary status" of these awakenings.

But Lambert does not give enough credit to the Spirit of God, nor enough accolades to men like Whitefield and Edwards, who crafted compelling pieces of theological rhetoric that were used by the Lord.

I recommend this book as interesting history, but would also direct the reader to the primary source documents of the Great Awakening, namely, the sermons of Whitefield and the writings of Edwards.

Rev. Marc Axelrod

This is a very thorough and well written analysis of the first Great Awakening. Lambert's point of departure is a fairly narrow point of historiography, the existence of the Great Awakening. Some scholars have argued recently that the Great Awakening was actually only one of a series of local revivals in Colonial America and that the concept of an inter-colonial Great Awakening was imposed retrospectively by 19th century American evangelicals looking for a 'usable' past. Lambert examines the evidence for a Great Awakening as traditionally conceived, its origins, dynamics, and conclusion. Lambert reasserts the existence of the Great Awakening as an inter-colonial event. While it was triggered by and preceded by local revivals in parts of New England and the middle colonies, several features, including the important role of itinerant preachers like the famous George Whitefield, the use of proto-modern publicity, the sense of a general phenomenon, and its trans-Atlantic character, were all novel. Lambert shows well how the Great Awakening began with groups with well established revival traditions, notably New England Puritans and some Presbyterian groups of Scots origin. These movements became linked with a broader reform movement in England led by the Oxford Methodists and with revival movements in Scotland. The trans-Atlantic character of these movements served to reverberate and amplify the significance of events on each side of the Atlantic. The robust print culture of the greater British world made possible the linkages and innovations characteristic of the Great Awakening. Lambert shows well how the Great Amakening was a planned, not spontaneous event. Implicit in his narrative is the sense that the Great Awakening was a crucial factor in the development of an American religous marketplace in which the laity play the key role of discriminating consumers. Recommend strongly for those interested in colonial America.

This is a fast-moving, creepy tale of mobsters, ghosts, and love gone crazy. An excellent second inclusion in the Abbadon Inn series. Highly recommended...and stay out of the basement!

I expected it to be a little more interesting...this sort of reminded me of that Stephen King mini-series "Rose Red." Had some scary parts, but it never really delved into the original history of the house. The first book was the same way...lots of important details missing. Average read...not so scary I couldn't read it at night.

This is pretty much just your run of the mill haunted house horror book..

Probably a little scarier then the first book in the trilogy but way too many things left unanswered or not explained..

For instance.... 'The eyes came toward her very quickly. She screamed when she saw that they weren't eyes after all'... OK..... what were they?

Also, towards the end of the book a character pops up that you HAVE heard about, but since they where supposed to be 90 miles away, you're not sure whether they are really there, or if it is an hallucination.

Finally, after describing how properties close to the ocean tend to harbor more ghosts because of drownings a ship wrecks, a ghost shows up that has absolutely no connection to anything at the house, but is just a relative if one of the characters..... Yeah it makes the book a little scarier, but I like my horror books to have some sort of cohesiveness.. This one doesn't...

So again, an average horror book, just don't expect anything that you haven't seen or read before...

This was a fun book to read on a plane. Lots of short informative stories. I use to live in NJ. but didn't know half of the history that are mingled into each tale.

The format of this book is unappealing. The font is small and the top and bottom margins are set for less than six inches, giving the appearance of very wordy pages. The book relates ghost stories in a verbose fashion, each story could be told in less than a page.

Continuing Stackpole Books' outstanding series on regional hauntings comes "Haunted New Jersey", 120 pages of hauntings, monsters, and other strange goings on in the Garden State. With some 70 plus tales they are only a page or two in length and designed to show off as many of the legends of New Jersey as possible and again, it succeeds! The book is arranged by geographical region and filled with fantastic lore.

For instance there is the former Governor's mansion on Perth Amboy where Governor William Franklin resided. Franklin was the son of one of America's greatest Statesmen and founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. But when the Revolution started, William refused to join and maintained his loyalty to England despite repeated pleas from his father. William would be exiled to England where he would die lonely and in shame. His ghost is said to yet occupy the mansion, ever regretting his fateful decision.

Then there is the story of Antoine LeBlanc who killed three people in 1833. Was later captured and hung. His body was given to a local surgeon for dissection. LeBlanc's skin was removed and tanned and used to make various objects. One purse still exists at the New Jersey Historical Society. This was also seen in an episode of the Travel Channels "Weird Travels". LeBlanc's ghost is said to haunt the area of Morristown, looking for these objects.

While many people think of Salem or even Connecticut when you talk about witchcraft in early America, New Jersey also had its suspected witches including Elizabeth Garlick who was put on trial but later set free and moved with her husband and child to the small town of Rio Grande. No burial plot has ever been found for her but around Halloween its said a strange mist swirls around the grave of her daughter. There is also an account of the less well-known witchcraft trials that took place in New Jersey in 1730.

The ghosts of former Vice President and suspected traitorAaron Burr and his father, also named Aaron are said to haunt the cemetery and regions around Princeton University.

Of course you can't talk about the weird in New Jersey without talking about its most famous monster, The Jersey Devil. This creature has been haunting the Pine Barrens area for almost 150 years and has been the subject of numerous segments on TV shows dealing with strange phenomena as well as a feature motion picture.

The book also provides information on ghost tours in New Jersey and websites you can visit that specialize in the research of the strange in Jersey. Yet another great addition to Stackpole's series of books on hauntings!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

"Innocent Victims" recounts the 1997 murder of Eddie Werner, 11, by Sam Manzie, the mentally disturbed 15-year-old victim of 43-year-old pedophile Steve Simmons. It's a remarkably compelling & well-told story & it gets better as it goes along. One theme is the failure of the court system to respond to the warnings & pleas of Manzie's own parents before the murder. The scene where a prosecutor attacks Manzie's mother in court is genuinely enraging--it's an incredible moment that demonstrates how successfully the author pulls the reader into the story. It made me fervently wish the prosecutor lost his job. The real achievement of this book is getting the reader to care about all sides of the case. Brian J. Karem shows the pain & frustrations of both Werner's parents & Manzie's parents excellently, shows the consequences for both sides, the remarkable similarity between their situations. He shows the families' period of feuding in such a way that you don't judge them for hating each other, you empathize for both sides. And Karem goes above & beyond by presenting the pedophile's point of view in spite of its inherent odiousness. He shows who the pedophile is & lets you decide for yourself what to think (it's not a difficult decision). This was a complex case & Karem presents it very clearly, very economically & compellingly in a way that surely even those involved would find strikingly empathetic. The only people who emerge with dignity in this are Ed & Valerie Werner & Nick & Dolores Manzie. The justice system was at its indifferent worst from start to finish. Karem also manages to deal with thoroughly distasteful subjects sensitively. Excellent.

This was the first true crime book I had read by Brian J. Karem but I found it to be extremely well written and very detailed. Unfortunately, the facts of the case are a bit hard to stomach (especially if you are a parent) but Karen doesn't tip-toe around the gruesome details. I recommend this book to any fan of true crime.

I'd say a little over 1/4 of this book is accurate. I am not going to say who I am but I did know Sam very very well and a lot of the stuff the author "assumes" about Sam is just that - assumptions, not fact.

It probably would have been a decent true crime read if the facts had been there a bit more. Also, if it hadn't been about someone I cared about :(

Amazing. I couldn't put the book down. Stein did a spectacular job.

another example of dull, tired, unoriginal prose. Not worth the time or money.

This is a stunning book; heartbreaking, intelligent, and truly original. Stein's characters are completely believable, and he is not afraid to reveal their secrets. I'm impressed by the unflinching honesty of this book as it deals with a tough and contentious issue--race relations in America. This is Stein's third novel, and he just keeps getting better.

Is there an alternative to the exploitation,
boss domination, environmental havoc, dog-eat-dog
competition and other
ills of capitalism? "Well Soviet central
planning was tried and that failed," you say?
Hahnel and Albert argue that there is a third
alternative -- Participatory Economics or
ParEcon. (The other reviewer's description of
ParEcon is an inaccurate caricature.)
This book provides a concise introduction to
an economic model that is neither Soviet-style
central-planning nor based on the market. The
critique of both markets and central planning is
written clearly. At the same time, this book
contains formal proofs of the economic adequacy
of their model, and is therefore, in parts,
more technical than most of Albert and Hahnel's other
little books like "Moving Forward."

The short tract "The Political Economy of Participatory Economics" seems mostly to have been intended as a 'formal' statement and modelling of Parecon for the academic economist public. The first half of the work restates the case for Parecon in a summary, sort of academic way - for more on this, see Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Then, in response to a challenge by Allen Buchanan that nobody has been able to model an alternative to capitalist market economies yet, Albert & Hahnel create a modelling formula of the principles of Parecon, which they dub the "FMPE" (Formal Modelling of a Participatory Economy). This is highly superfluous on its own, given that it just mathematizes what they have already accessibly described in words, but it is a reflection of the sad state economics as a discipline is in that Albert & Hahnel have no choice but to do this if they want to get through to people in that field. Most important and useful here is the way Albert & Hahnel integrate their endogenous preferences theory, developed in their book Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics, which will be of interest to heterodox economists.

Along the way, they also address some concerns about the feasibility of their plans, though not any of the more serious objections: their moral hatred of hierarchy leading them to dismiss central planning for no real reason, the degree of bureaucracy involved in their council system which seems to easily surpass that of central planning systems, and the way in which their ideas for consumers' councils greatly seems to exaggerate people's capacity to understand and formulate their own preferences. Then there's the issue that such councils would have to be quite intrusive, as nothing could be bought or sold without councils knowing about it, so that all know about the private life of all in at least that respect. Albert & Hahnel go extremely far in their egalitarianism as well, even proposing to pay more to less competent people who undertake more effort in sports, not just at the top level, but all the way down. But at the same time, they don't seem to have realized that their council system still greatly favors people who are more talented at formulating their preferences and demands over people who are shy, lack self-knowledge, are uncertain about their life-goals, etc.

None of the above objections need defeat the proposal, but I do think Parecon needs an extra round of tinkering or two, with more ideas from more traditional socialist models put in instead of the rather overly egalitarian and optimistic proposal as it stands now. And it's telling that even an absolutely convinced socialist like me would accuse them of those things, precisely the faults socialism in general is often accused of by right-wing philistines; therefore, I may be wrong and underestimating people (as well as Albert & Hahnel), but it's also possible that Parecon as it is now is too much of a good thing.

In any case this booklet is probably not the first one one would want to buy to understand Parecon and the arguments about it, since this is really mostly aimed at economists. The book "Parecon" itself (link above) as well as Moving Forward: Program for a Participatory Economy might be a better buy for that.

I buy a product because I find it useful and if someone makes something better then I spend my money on that instead. There's a simplicity to that system I can understand. Instead, these guys say classlessness is more important, so dump the market and have a committee of self managing workers decide on the product's worth and then mediate and refine their desires in the light of feedback by other committees taking into account issues of classlessness, race and environmental impact. Pay will be decided on the basis of who has made the most effort and sacrifice in making the product. As far as books are concerned, the committee of self participatory workers will decide the worth of the book and whether or not it is worth making the neccessary sacrifice to make the book and then presumably send it to the printers so they can have a meeting as to whether they wish to participate in printing the book and send back their imput as to their desires and the commitee will have another participatory self managing meeting to take this into account and come to a mutually beneficial agreement on whether or not to proceed. This simpler system falls apart over one unanswerable question. What the hell are we going to do about Oliver Stone?