Texas Books

This was a very well-crafted and informative book, which I would recommend reading to those who haven't yet. For those who have, and who enjoyed it like I did, I would recommend Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival, which George Kennan's account of his travels around eastern Siberia on dogs and reindeer sleds.

The Other Side of Russia is part travel narrative, part social history, part memoir, part food writing. All these parts come together to make a terrific book.

Sharon Hudgins and her husband Tom spent a year and a half in post-Soviet Siberia teaching business management for the University of Maryland's overseas program. As peripatetic ex-patriates, they were familiar with unfamiliarity. But they were still not prepared for what Siberia had to offer them.

Join Sharon and Tom as they picnic with the Russian Mafiya, try to teach in an educational system that discourages questions and independent thinking, and ponder why a herd of horses is tangled in downtown rush hour traffic.

In "Absurdistan" it is just one perplexing thing after another. The electricity and water in their poorly-constructed apartment building work only intermittently. But in spite of such challenges, they make friends and entertain regularly. Cultural differences mean that the same friends who swoon over delicacies such as wafer-thin horse liver slices rolled with layers of horse fat, are unable to enjoy a Hudgins Tex-Mex feast.

Hudgins's previous work as a food and travel writer are evident here, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she writes fiction as well. The narrative is effortless and the stories she tells are by turns engaging and frightening.

In The Other Side Of Russia, author Sharon Hudgins takes the reader along on her Trains-Siberian Railroad adventure through Siberia and the Russian Far East, an area that was closed off to Westerners (and most Russians) prior to 1990s and the collapse of the old Soviet Union. Here the reader will be treated to a unique travelogue that will take them from the frozen surface of Lake Baikal, to feast with native Siberian Buryats, the food markets and "high-rise villages" of Vladivostok and Irkutsk, Christmas celebrations, New Year's banquets, Easter dinners, and Siberian festivals. The Other Side Of Russia dispels the myths and misconceptions about the Asian part of Russia which extends across eight time zones between the Ural Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Offering a window of observation into this land of harsh winters, vast uninhabited spaces, friendly people, strange cuisines, and thriving modern cities, The Other Side Of Russia is a welcome, informative, and highly entertaining read which is especially commended to the attention of armchair travelers and students of Russian culture and history.

The Other Side of Russia emerged from Barbara Hudgins experience of living in Siberia for a year and a half, from 1993 to 1994. Working as the onsite program coordinator for the University of Maryland University College in Siberia and the Russian Far East, she worked and lived in Vladivostok and Irkutsk.

Hudgins book is the first book about Siberia I'd come across written by someone who spent extensive time in Siberia. This gives her a depth of understanding that adds a lot to her memoir.

The structure of her memoir is unusual. She's divided the book into two sections. The chapters in part one focus on place - Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Lake Baikal, etc. - and the chapters in the second part focus on aspects of life and culture in Siberia - housing, education, food and festivals. Hudgins supplemented her first-hand experience with extensive research. This offers readers an in-depth source of information about many aspects of Siberian place and life.

What's lost in this non-chronological format is Hudgin's own adaptations and reactions over her time in Siberia. She does insert some feelings and personality, but the focus is on the topic, rather than on her personal experience or characters who change and develop over the period.

Hudgins seems to have thrown herself into Siberia with a remarkably open mind. She expertly captures the small details of Siberian life and renders vivid pictures of feasts shared with Russian friends. For those who have been to Siberia, this book will take you back there. For those planning on going, The Other Side of Russia provides a great overview of the life and culture.

In THE OTHER SIDE OF RUSSIA, the University of Maryland University College has established a joint undergraduate degree program in business management with the Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok and the State University in Irkutsk. In the summer of 1993, author Sharon Hudgins and her husband, Tom, packed off to Siberia and the Russian Far East to serve as teachers in this cooperative venture, while the former was also Maryland's on-site program coordinator in both cities. This book chronicles their experiences from their arrival until their departure in December 1994.

Whether she's describing the immensity of pristine Lake Baikal, the problematic living conditions in their high-rise apartment, local customs and food of the Buryat people, the vagaries and perils of shopping for household necessities, maddening water and electricity outages, local festivals, the growing pains of a free-market economy, the university students' learning ethic, or the conviviality and generosity of their Russian friends, Hudgins has a keen eye for small details, as when describing an open air market:

"An Uzbek woman ... sold raisins and nuts in small paper cones made out of official forms from the Irkutsk Municipal Water Department ... In one part of the market, a pretty teenage girl, wearing a garish, flower-printed dress and a thousand-yard stare, held a handful of peacock feathers and sipped a can of Dr Pepper, while in another section two older women, both drunk, tried to punch each other out in a fist fight."

I haven't been so engaged by a travel essay about Russia since Hedrick Smith's 1976 bestseller, THE RUSSIANS. My only criticism is the relative lack of photographs - only a couple at most per chapter. Luckily, Sharon's poetic prose paints pictures almost as effective as snapshots, as this from her vantage point on the Trans-Siberian Railroad:

"A profusion of wildflowers carpeted the meadows, like an Impressionist painting exuberantly expanding beyond the limits of canvas and frame: undulating shades of yellow, gold, and blue, maroon and magenta, soft pink and pristine white, the pale purple globes of wild onions gone to seed, thousands of red-orange tiger lilies, whole fields of dark purple Siberian irises, and occasionally a single red poppy or two, like a stubborn symbol of politics past. Outside Chita a small lake glistened under the midnight moon."

For me, a travel narrative is all it can be if it makes me want to go there myself. THE OTHER SIDE OF RUSSIA accomplishes that. Well, maybe for just a brief visit, perhaps, because I certainly wouldn't want to live there.

I became addicted to Haim Potok's writing. Once I finish one of his books, I can't help it - I buy a new one. Amazing story-teller!

This is a beautiful story; it is my very favourite book. I love it with all my heart.

I too have read the more well known books of Potok. I picked up this one at a used book sale. This book is somewhat different from the others in that it it goes deeply into one characte's thoughts and emotions. One could label the book slow, but I didn't find it that way. I found the story of David Lurie's mother to be by far the most painful to read. As a reader, we are given only bits and pieces of this woman's very broken heart. Perhaps it's a sign of a wonderful writer that every character in this book seemed to warrant a book of his or her own.

I've never encountered a novel structured exactly like this one. The details given in the first 4/5ths of its length led a reader to believe In The Beginning was a story about a brilliant young Jewish boy and his family, their life in America, where the boy and his brother where born to recent Polish emigrants, and of the determined struggle this family undertakes, not only to establish their lives in the United States, but to honorably aid numerous Jewish families who wish to leave Poland and settle in New York. As the story of this family, the novel served a detailed, well-written tale that gave terrific insights into the psyche and values of east-European Jews in the early twentieth-century. The family thrives in the US in the prosperous 1920's, though the pre-school-age David is sadistically bullied by anti-Semitic local boys, and he lives to piece together the whispered secrets of his father's conduct as a one-time militant activist among Jews in the "old country." We follow this family into the Great Depression, when its fortunes declined, into World War Two, where its newly-discovered prosperity is scant comfort as its members learn of the Nazis' cruelty to family and acquaintances they left behind in Europe.

However, like a magician dealing out a slight of hand trick, Chaim Potok revealed the true story only at the very end of In The Beginning---and all else that came before this point was merely establishing the stage for the final act and a statement he wished to make on the subject of faith, reason, and evidence. The central character, David Lurie, due to his intellectual brilliance the shining star of his local school, stuns his family, friends, and classmates, by laying aside his Orthodox upbringing and upon college graduation becoming a secular Biblical scholar. Lurie announces his newfound conviction that the Torah was not given by G-d to Moses on Sinai, but was authored by numerous Jews across an indefinite time period, long after Moses' death. To Lurie's parents this is an act of unmitigated treason to all that is holy and life-sustaining in their world. That their much-loved eldest son, their pride and great hope, should plan to write skeptical books on this topic, and thereby "sin by making others sin" is crushing to them one and all. And only at the extreme conclusion of this 430 page novel is this revealed when beforehand a straightforward plot about Jews reacting to a changing world was what we had been lulled into expecting. The earlier tale of David's health struggles, his father's rise and fall, the immigration movement, and even at the end the horrors of Nazi Germany, all of that I found was Potok's subterfuge to sneak in an ending so different from what the deliberately-paced novel seemed to prepare us for that this work almost deserves to be spoken of as having some sort of twist at its shocking ending.

As always, Potok wrote well here and his characters and the setting were magnificently accomplished, but I was left feeling I had read two different books, one a family tale, the other a dissertation on modern Talmudic scholarship. I also strongly felt that the characters at the end, while bearing the same names they had 300 pages earlier, were not exactly the same ones I had been reading about as they advanced thru twenty harsh years in their lives. I also have read that this book is slightly autobiographical, so that deserves to be pointed out. This is a good book but it is slow-moving and spends much of its time inside David's head and the pseudo fantasy world which he inhabits, so be prepared for that. I also wish Potok had written a sequel, as he did with The Chosen. I ended up saying, "Yes, and what happens next?" Sadly, we'll never know...

Never before have I ever read something so influential, so vividly drawn before me. I am a huge fan of Potok, and after reading Asher, Promise, Chosen, and Davita, this obscure novel that barely comes up in Borders search is my favorite. It is a shame to see it is widely ignored.

Potok is a genious, and one can understand this brilliant man in this book. He is able to create a person, a character, that seems life like. You want to jump in the book to hug him, to stop him, or to help him. It is an impossible book to put down, and by far the best book I have ever read. He is the best author I have ever read.

I recommend this book to everyone. Everyone could use a little of Danny in their lives.

Simolke, Duane. "The Acorn Stories", iUniverse, 2003.

Living in a Small Town

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

Acorn, Texas--population 21. 001 is the setting for Duane Simolke's wonderful "The Acorn Stories". The town of Acorn is full of stories and if you have lived in a small town you know exactly what I mean. Each of Simolke's stories lets us look into the lives of some of the most interesting characters I have ever read about. As you read each story, you seem to make new friends and when I closed the book I felt as if I actually knew many in the town. Just as the stories are all separate, they eventually tie together. There is just the right amount of detail to let the reader feel he knows the people of Acorn.
Even more interesting is that Simolke wrote this book in a very difficult style of writing--the stream of consciousness. This allows the reader to feel as if he is one of the characters and as the stories come together, we get a picture of Acorn, Texas in quite a unique way. The 16 stories in the book, although separate, are all related and this is not an easy way to write. As the characters merge, the imaginary (at least I think it is imaginary0 town seems to be very real.
The residents of Acorn are very real people--or so they seemed to me as I met them. And as the stores come together the town of Acorn is laid bare reminding me of what is left of a turkey after Thanksgiving dinner. As we meet the townsfolk, we dig below the outside appearance and go deep into the characters. The characters are quite a menagerie of folk all of whom have challenges and problem (just like we all do). It is the personalities and actions of the members of Acorn that make the stories live. In fact, I am not really sure that this is a collection of short stories because of the interactions between the stories and when they all come together it is like reading a novel.
Acorn is located in west Texas and there, under the Texas sun and the majestic oak trees (so unlike Texas) is a mixture of Hispanics and Anglos as well as a few Afro-Americans. Some were born in Acorn and some are hiding in Acorn. Newlyweds Becky and Kyle are very much in love and they are starting a life together. We meet the [...] art dealer and gallery owner who is being blackmailed by the [....] mayor of the town. There is also a famous writer hiding in Acorn because he stages his own fake suicide. There is the high school teacher who favors sports over academics and the young kid who is keeping a secret, a young man looking for a sugar momma to pay his rent, a widow ad her cat, Regina, an overbearing sister, a widow, Mae, who remembers how life was once and so on.
I must say that I loved this book and have reread several of the stories. It is a rare treat and one that will have you laughing, crying, commiserating and identifying. I have not had this much fun in a long time.

Duane Simolke's, "The Acorn Stories," is set in the fictional West Texas town of Acorn, so named because it's the only town in the entire region that has trees, thanks to the foresight of its founders. The stories are a compilation of vignettes that give the reader a glimpse into the everyday happenings of a group of residents whose lives, we learn as the chapters unfold, interconnect in fascinating and unexpected ways. With each new story, or chapter, the reader is introduced to a new character. The stories and lives of the citizens of Acorn interweave, turning "The Acorn Stories" into what is essentially a novel...quite a feat for the author to accomplish in a relatively short book.

Simolke allows the reader peeks into the thoughts of diverse characters, from a policeman's recollection of his abusive childhood, to the befuddled thoughts of a senile old man. We see events from the points of view of a deaf man who manages to do a good job as the high school's English teacher, an esteemed best selling author desperately trying to escape life's travails, and a young couple who find love and, like it or not, become parents at a most unexpected time and place...the opening of an Art Gallery that happens to be owned by the teacher's boyfriend. A small example of how the stories go around.

"The Acorn Stories" allows the reader an understanding of the human condition. We learn what makes each individual's personality tick. Simolke's characters are male and female, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, handicapped and gifted, happy and sad, satisfied and searching, hypocritical and fair-minded. The ability to depict such a wide cross section of humanity, including details of each character's breadth of knowledge and experience, takes a talented, insightful author, and Duane Simolke is such a writer.

I dislike giving ratings to books...they are too subjective...but The Acorn Stories deserves 5 stars as a very intelligently written book. Don't miss it.

Duane Simolke's offering of his sixteen short stories, many with overlapping characters and plot-lines, all set within or around the fictitious west-Texas small town of Acorn, provides its readers an insightful and literate look at what goes on in the hinderlands beyond the boundaries of this country's big cities.

Not as salaciously rendered as was Peyton Place (which, if you remember, was a small town taken on by Grace Metalious), Simolke's Acorn, Texas, still turns out to be rife with some of the same angst-ridden problems, thereby, once again, exploding the myth that rural "out there" is actually more idyllic (even Edenesque), as compared to big-city "in here".

From the who-will-have-control-of-this-relationship "dueling" of Regina Thibodeaux and Dirk Palmer in Simolke's lead-off story "Acorn", to the not-always-that-pleasant reminisces of town maven Aragon Carsons in the book's concluding "Acorn Pie", Simolke puts rural America under a microscope to unveil all of its acne, sores, scars, and festering wounds.

THE ACORN STORIES isn't for any reader out to preserve his or her unrealistic nostaligic notion that rural-America is the place "to be" "to get away from it all". On the other hand, for those of us not put off by realism and always interested in a literate writer who can provide us a peek beneath the veneer, Simolke provides some very enjoyable reading moments.

"The Acorn Stories" is BRILLIANT! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! Heck, it's right in front of me now. I just finished it. I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT! EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT! I cried reading "Mae", and smiled viciously at "Mirrors: A Blackmail letter". Duane, where is "Acorn Revisited."? :) KUDOS!

The Acorn Stories
Duane Simolke

Review by Mountman

Picture a small town in West Texas. Acorn. The reason it's called Acorn is that it is the only town in West Texas that has a lot of trees. Yes, Acorn is a fictional town but after reading The Acorn Stories, I wanted to visit the place, just to check it out.

" "Welcome to Acorn, population 21,001, the Texas town with a little name and a big heart" - Sign marking city limits of Acorn" (taken from the book.)

Like the branches of the Main Street Oak tree, the town has just as many histories and legends. Each story gives you a glimpse into lives of the people of Acorn. Also how their lives are intertwined.

There are stories about the founding family, newcomers, the rich, the poor and in between. When I first started reading it I felt like I was left hanging. Just then, in Simolke unique clever style, things began to connect. Growing up in a small town I could relate to some of the characters. Duane gives you just enough details that you get a feel for where each of the characters are coming from. There are people that you like, some that you can't wait to see if they get theirs. Big cheers for when they do!

Ones that really grabbed me are Survival and Dead Enough. Survival is about a gay, deaf teacher. Dead Enough is about a writer of murder mysteries. I'm not going to give you any details because you will have to find out for yourself.

Whether you are an avid short story reader, or a novel reader this is a must read! So check it out.

We are snowbirds and we kept getting "misplaced" with the regular maps. This one is complete and accurate. Thanks

These Delorme Atlas & Gazetters are wondeful. They show you many features not available through GPS, maps or other atlases. It is a great feature to have the BLM lands marked as well as the back roads. Good resources are also included in each states atlas. A good addition to anyone's travel tools.

I purchased the maps so I could see the elevation contours. I have a Tennessee maps and it gives the elevation changes by 100 foot. The map gives some elevation but not the contours.

Great Product! Nearly as good as having a seperate map for every county in the whole state.
I like it best because I can read the text much easier than a state map, especially in low light. My bifocals are OK for reading but not the fine details of most maps.

I have nothing but praise for DeLorme. We have purchased and used 5 states now (Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Colorado, and Arizona), and each has enabled us to really enjoy some spontaneous vacations. I plan to buy one for each state I visit.

I don't know much about birds other than they fly and I like to look at them in the backyard. I have often wondered what kind of birds I have been watching... Enter this book.

To look up a bird in the book, you flip through the top corner looking for the predominant color of the bird, then scan through a dozen or so pictures and very easily identify what you are looking at. I have not seen a bird in my yard that has not been very easy to find in the book.

Also, the description of the birds are quite informative, and the information is very easy to understand.

I recommend this book.

This is a great book for everyday use to identify birds, I have several bird book including an Audabon book and prefer this to the rest.

This book covers every bird I've ever seen in the Great State (over 40 years worth). I guess if you are trying to dot the final i, you might look for a more complete reference, but for 99.4% of us, this book cannot be beat.

Just returned from a birding trip to Texas. This book had everything I needed and more. Very helpful! Gives some details not read in other bird books.

This is the first field guide that I have ever bought. We are studying birds in my kids' science curriculum, so we needed to get a book to help us out. Although I can't compare it to others, I am definitely pleased with this choice. My boys are 9 and 10 and they can use it as easily as I can. And so far we have found every bird in our yard in this book. It doesn't have tons of detail, but that makes it easier to look through it, and then we can search online for further information as needed. And it has wonderful color photos. If you're looking for a basic Texas Bird Field Guide, I would recommend this book.

It's been a while since I've read another Willie-Morris related book but I was drawn to this one by frequent references to Celia Morris in a recent biography of the Harpers editor by Larry King, not the talk show host but a Texas based writer and anecdotalist. I've read the biography of Willie, but it seems that Larry King, who knew both Willie and Celia, didn't really care for Celia because his book is clearly biased in favor of Willie's second wife, the editor JoAnne Pritchard. I decided to go to the source and find out more about the woman herself, Celia Morris, by reading her account of her own life, and in FINDING CELIA'S PLACE I struck the motherlode! She tells it exactly as she found it.

It was a challenge for Celia to overcome to orejudices of her place and time, while still remaining true to her roots as a Texan and a woman. She had strong female relatives, older crones in the family, women she learned from, their struggles and their achievements, and also, how frustrating it was trying to be the perfect wife in the 1950s. It's not all tears, though, there are many amusing tales, including the first penis she saw! Belonged to a neighbor boy who could do tricks with it, wiggle it a bit, and Celia was singularly unimpressed!

Eventually adultery and alcoholism deter her from her path, and she winds up with not one, but two "liberal folk heroes" as she calls them. In a 12 step program, a fellow drinker confides in the group that if he were to take another drink, he would die. She comes right back with, if she were to take another drink, she'd marry a third liberal folk hero.

The glamor and the excitement that Willie Morris brought to his book NEW YORK DAYS, and the adoration of the lab Skip, in MY DOG SKIP, she sees from another angle, for often enough thoughtless Willie would bring home twelve men from Harpers and order her to make dinner, when she was completely worn out from dealing with little David all day, his skinned knees, his need for adventure. Plus, they were trying to survive in the jet set on a very limited budget. Finding her own place in the sun meant shedding the excess baggage of husband and traditional domestic cares. Good for her.

I was surprised to see, after an initial flurry of reviews in the months immediately following publication, that no one has apparently written about FINDING CELIA'S PLACE on this Amazon site in four or five years! A tragic lack of recognition, when this book should be required reading in all college classrooms. Perhaps people got tired of the title, it sounds whiny, when the book itself is anything but!

Quite by lucky accident we stayed a Celia's Place for a few days. Thanks to the book, when she came to the door we felt that we already knew her. A wonderful book about a remarkable woman.

Finding Celia's Place is an enthralling, absorbing tale of one woman's ability to and struggle to rise above and go far beyond the confines of Texas. From most adored woman on campus to the lodestar of Americans at Oxford, Celia really did find a succession of strong places in the minds and hearts of her men and her many other friends. She did make a magnificent difference to her contemporaries well beyond those Texas bounds. An uplifting as well as a great read.

I've read lots of memoirs by women and written one. Let me tell you, Celia Morris' "Finding Celia's Place" is in a class all its own. For starters, it is beautifully written and hard to put down. More importantly, she pushes the envelope for honesty among women on the subjects of sex, motherhood, marriage, and politics. I can think of hardly any books that go as far as she does in depicting a woman's sexual maturation beyond youth and into late middle age. She stands almost alone among women who have written well about their intellectual roots and maturation. Simone de Beauvoir's "She Came to Stay" is the only book I can think of to compare to this one.

judith paterson

Celia Morris' memoir should be a permanent fixture on the syllabus of any Women's Studies course - or American History, for that matter. Morris' wrenching account of a woman struggling to keep up appearances at the same time that she is developing intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically throws into high relief the relative comfort in which the daughters of her generation (like me)are able to move through life. Were it not for the faith - and occasional lapses of it - and courage of women like Celia Morris, women of my generation would have no hope but to fall victim to the same myths of femininity and womanly duty.

American women of all ages owe Celia Morris a debt of gratitude for giving us her story.

I think this book will help anyone. From a beginner to someone who has played in tournaments. It's more appropriate for those with some knowledge and strategies of their own, but really anyone can benefit from this book.

This is a great tournament book! They discuss so many new concepts that hasn't been mentioned before in book form. These concepts can be found in different poker forums as in 2+2 forum. One of the concepts that is mentioned is bubble effect. They will discuss how to calculate the real value of your chips in different situations in a tournament and how it will effect your decisions. Many of the concepts are very helpful for sit and go as well, especially when you want to squeeze in to the money often. I highly recommend this great book. The authors have done a great job writing this.

I was a little skeptical, if not curious as to what would be written in this book and as to how useful the advice would be. I had read Kill Phil and thought that the ideas were very basic and not very applicable to intermediate and advanced players. When I spent my money on Kill Everyone and read I could not stop reading. Why? Because the 2008 Aussie Millions main event was coming up and the book focuses on bubble play, equilibrium strategies and prize pools and equities; concepts which are very important in the major events. All the money in poker is to be made in or around the bubble and when approaching the final table. Kill Everyone is the best for these situations and therefore very much worth the read. Part one of the book shows how to accumulate chips early on and I found a particular example useful for me in the 2008 Aussie Millions Main Event. For No Limit Hold'em Tournaments this book sets the new precedent. Lee's latest book Let's Play Poker is brilliant for sit and go's. Use these books to improve your skills and reach your poker playing potential.

If you play freeze-out tournaments (Anything else played today?) you'll find this book to be an essential source-book and reference. An understanding of the concepts and examples presented will give any player a better foundation from which to make decisions - and from which to approach the optimum decision at critical points.

The discussion of play on the bubble is alone worth much more than the price of the book. For example the authors present analysis of how often you should push as a function of your bubble factor (ratio of equity loss from losing to equity gain from winning the confrontation) and your opponent's calling frequency. Most players know intuitively that you should push more frequently when (a) your bubble factor is greater and (b) your opponent is more likely to call. But a chart showing the results of the calculations gives insight that can't be gotten otherwise.

One short section attacks the myth that the big stack should call liberally to knock out small stacks. That discussion alone can make the difference between just finishing in the money and making a big win. If you have ever called or raised a bit loosely to knock out small stacks only to find that you've doubled up one or more and made them into real competition while crippling yourself then this section is must reading.

I could continue with examples, but the book is only 348 pages - probably shorter than my examples would be.

I do have a single criticism. The authors (properly) use the Independent Chip Model but without fully explaining the assumptions on which it relies. Like most other authors they do explain that it assumes equal skill for all players. However, they neglect to mention that it also relies on two other assumptions: (1) that all players will receive equivalent hands over the limited time of the tournament, and (2) that play is based on only your hand and statistical behavior of your opponents. If you're in the middle of a tournament, assumption (1) probably doesn't apply for the limited number of hands remaining, and in any given hand other things - tells for lack of a better word - frequently become more important than either of these assumptions.

Do yourself a favor and buy this book. But, be prepared to study rather than just read for it contains more, much more, than a list of starting hands and advice to play a tight aggressive game.

After reading Kill Phil, I knew this book would be really good. What amazed me was the amount of theory and math loaded in this book. Aside from 2+2 books, I have never seen a poker book with so much indepth analysis. The book has solid advice for all stages of any types of tournamenets. The calculations and decisions that have to be made very quickly will likely become second nature over time. I know it didn't take me long to get very comfortable with the KILL PHIL system and it worked out really well.

There are a number of study groups and Q & A forums on the web to help people understand parts of the book. It will probably not be the easiest poker book you've ever read. A lot of people are taking their time to ensure they understand each chapter before the go on to the next chapter. We can always use more books where the authors take the game and their writing seriously in an effort to help the readers. With effort on your part, you will see improvement in your game using the concepts explained in Kill Everyone.

I'm in agreement with the other reveiwers here, this is a 5 star book and is definitely worth your consideration if tournaments are your thing.

This was a great story, so interesting with the differences and similarities with the characters. I loved the vivid style of writing and felt like I was right there with them on thier adventure on the road. Awesome book! I will eagerly await anything else written by this fabulous author, Amy Wallen.
Thanks for sharing this with the world. I wish all books were this entertaining.

Elizabeth Slick

What a great book! I loved every minute of it. The characters are quirky and funny, yet Wallen never loses sight of their humanity. You will want to read the whole section about The Price is Right again and again--laugh out loud hilarious. This is a writer who knows what she's doing--spinning a tale that grabs the reader page after page and never disappoints. I can't wait to read the next book by this terrific writer.

When Ruby sees a TV commercial featuring her runaway daughter Violet, dressed as the Buttermaid girl, she makes up her mind to find her. Ruby, her sister Loralva, and Violet's aggravating mother-in-law (whose only redeeming quality is that she owns the Winnebago needed to drive them across country) pile in and off they go.

The romp from Devine, Texas, to Hollywood begins at Ruby's bowling alley and ends at the studio of The Price is Right, with plenty of laughs in between. Stuck in the `bago with Violet's two unhappy children and the mother-in-law Violet had hoped to escape, Ruby quizzes her sister with price questions from the Sears catalog. It's a welcome distraction and a way for Loralva to win the game show's big prize. The only distraction that works for her grandchildren is the endless supply of Moon Pies brought along for the road trip.

In her quest to find her daughter, Ruby realizes there's more to being a mother than biology. She also learns Loralva's secret to a happy life: Pretend not to worry. It just gives you wrinkles.

Amy Wallen's first novel is touching and poignant, but it's mostly delightfully funny. The comic dialogue and the offbeat characters the Texas ladies meet along the way are clever enough to make an afternoon in your front porch swing fly by.

For any fan of reading, this book is a must! What a fun little ride this treasure is! Amy Wallen certainly can spin a yarn!!!!

Meet Ruby Kincaid from Devine, Texas, population under 900!!!! Ruby owns and operates a bowling alley and if that isn't enough, she is raising her two young grandchildren, Bunny and Bubbie. Bunny and Bubbie have been abandoned by their mom, Ruby's daughter, Violet.

Violet has taken off for parts unknown, leaving her family, children, home town. Then, one day, Violet is on TV. She is the actress playing the ButterMaid in a commercial.

Chaos ensues -- Ruby, her fun-loving, rip-roaring, man-loving sister Loralva, Bunny and Bubbie, and Imogene, Violet's mother-in-law, all pack themselves into Imogene's Winnebago and head west. California here they come!!!!!

The road trip and everything that happens to these fun characters is a riot! The writing is excellent and very descriptive. The characters personalities SHINE. Ms. Wallen's artistic gift of writing has you seeing a crystal clear picture of everything -- from the landscape, the weather, the outfits Loralva throws together, to the character's emotions, the slang of the Texas characters -- this is such a good book.

Loralva's dream is to go to California and appear on THE PRICE IS RIGHT and it is almost as if YOU are sitting in the audience also or watching it on TV. Ms. Wallen has it down pat -- COME ON DOWN and read this book.

The plot moves and flows, the characters are life-like and become people you learn to care about. Hopefully, there will be more books with these fun and interesting group of characters in it. The road is bumpy, dreams don't always come true for these people, and the book is fun and entertaining.

Do yourself a favor and read this book. Also, note the jacket cover and artwork! How great, how creative, how the story is told from the jacket cover itself. Hats off to Roseanne Serra and Ross MacDonald for their creativity!

Read this book, hope for more. You will love it and have a good time reading this one!!!!!

Thank you!! Pam

In 1976 in Divine, Texas grandmother Ruby Kincaid feels her life is overflowing with family concerns with no time for herself. The widow runs her late husband's bowling alley; serves as mother to her runaway daughter's abandoned children Bunny and Bubbie whose dad is about to remarry; and finally puts up with her impudent childish sister Loralva. Ruby copes nicely with her "moonpie" lifestyle until she sees her absentee daughter Violet starring in a TV commercial.

Outraged, Ruby decides enough of this inane separation; though she also knows she would not mind a bit of self time. She mounts a save the marriage and family rescue mission. Loading her Winnebago with MoonPies to limit the stops, Ruby, Loralva, Bunny, Bubbie and their paternal grandma Imogene head to Hollywood to bring Victoria home; with an agreed upon side trip to meet Bob Barker on The Price Is Right.

This is an amusing yet angst ridden historical tale in which rural Texas dirt meets Hollywood glitter on Hollywood and Vine. The trek west is fun as long as you are metaphysically arm-chairing the journey. Though some of the capers the Divine trio get into seem strained beyond farcical lampooning, fans will appreciate this interesting look at save the marriage while wondering whether they can succeed when Violet has seen the lights of Hollywood; Americanization of "How you gonna keep `em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?"

Harriet Klausner

As a student at Yale Law School planning to go into estate planning, I found this book very helpful. Highly recommended for anyone who needs to plan their estate or for law students taking estate tax or planning courses. This book is easy to understand, well organized, and provides a good amount of detailed information, not just vague ideas. Highly recommended.

This book provides an easy to understand overview of estate planning plus easy to understand detail on many special circumstances. It is very easy to understand which estate planning techniques are right for you, and there are many examples that illustrate how the techniques work. Approximately half of this book is relevant to everyone. The other half gives clear, common sense explantions of advanced planning techniques that are typically reserved for those fortunate enough to be planning a high net worth estate (lets say $1M+). The advanced techniques are not for do it yourselfers, but the book gives you a good understanding of the issues and lets you converse intelligently with an attorney.

Now in a newly updated and expanded seventh edition, Plan Your Estate is a resource provided by attorneys Denis Clifford and Cora Jordan which is packed from cover to cover with everything anyone needs to know to ensure their worldly goods are promptly willed to loved ones. Written in no-nonsense terms that the non-specialist general reader can readily grasp, individual chapters clearly address wills, how to avoid probate, living trusts, property-control trusts, naming guardians for children and leaving property to children, estate taxes, living wills, how to reduce estate taxes, and much, much more. Especially recommended for individuals who own a business or who have children from a former marriage, Plan Your Estate is a "must-have", "do-it-yourself" legal resource, which is applicable to all American states except for Louisiana. Even those who prefer to let a professional handle the whole process of estate planning would be well served to read Plan Your Estate cover to cover, before stepping into an attorney's office where time is money and the clock is running.

Great for law students taking an estate planning course or an estate and gift tax course. Also good for people wanting to learn about estate planning in general. I would recommend this book.

This book is a must buy resource for persons interested in estate planning. Whether you are planning to do-it-yourself or use a lawyer, it is good to know what your options are. I am much better informed after reading this book.

I bought this book to study for the EC-4 Texes exam. The test had some of the same study questions that were in this book! So glad I studied! And I passed! :)

THis has been very helpful in preparing me for the TExES test. I recommend it to all

Janice Nath's book is the first textbook I actually read cover to cover. I not only passed the test on my first attempt with a 284 but I learned things I hope to use in my future classroom. The book is set up in sections based on the content areas covered in the test and gives an excellent review of the overwhelming amount of information a grade school teacher needs to know to be an effective teacher. I was really at a loss to know where to start studying for this test as the subject matter was so diverse. This textbook gave me direction. I got it only two weeks prior to taking the test and read every page. If you choose to purchase the book I hope you enjoy it just as much and good luck on the test. In fact I liked it so much I just wrote my first review on Amazon so others nervous about taking the test will get the help they need. :)

This is the best study guide to pass the EC-4 test. It has lots of details. Only thing is there is no practice test at the end. There are preactice questions throughout the book though. I bought this along with the CLIFFs book for this test CLIFFs book has 2 practice tests and wasn't bad for the money. But this book is the one you should buy to pass the test. It is well worth the money.

This is an excellent, thorough guide to help you prepare for the EC-4 TExES. I looked at several books, but felt like this one had the best information. Though there is not a full practice test, there are practice questions throughout, which are just as (if not more)helpful. Each answer is explained fully (not only why answer A is correct, but why B, C, and D are incorrect).

Several professors contributed to the text, and I know that many others choose it as required reading for their courses.

I made a very high score on the exam, and I owe that score in part to this guide.