Breeders Books

This is quite a good book BUT as other Breed books it dwells mainly on the young dog. It would be an improvement if there was more on the adult Chow ie. Grooming, feeding, prefered weights etc.

John Cunningham has been invalided out of the army. He caught a tropical virus while serving in the Falklands War. With his pension, savings, and a partner, he is striving to make Three Oaks Kennels a going concern. He trains the dogs, his partner Isobel handles them at field trials, and Beth, John's significant other acts as both kennel maid and nursemaid to them both. In this novel, Beth's uncle, the famous artist, George Muir, is killed in an explosion and has left Beth a painting and his Labrador puppy, Jason. John and Beth travel north to collect both and visit with the widow, Aunt Hattie. John isn't satisfied that the explosion was an accident, and notifies the local police, but doesn't tell Beth or Hattie. Other family problems arise involving the inheritance and Muir's other paintings.

There is more than enough going on in this mystery to keep anyone happy. Family squabbles, murder, swindlers, and goodness knows what else. I was a little offended by the author referring to Beth as John's mistress, but other than that, I enjoyed the mystery thoroughly and hope to work my way through the whole series.

for the racing person this is a great read! really enjoyed it nice to read about great old horsemen! worth the read.......

Lefko is a Toronto based sports journalist, who has assembled agreat history of the breeders cup, both in terms of how it came aboutand the first ten runnings. Great pictures, and insight into many of the sports stars both equine and human. A must have for any horseracing enthusiast. END

Hank Wiescamp ultimately breed some of the greatest horses from four registeries - Quarter, Appalossa, Palomino, and Paint. "The Hank Wiescamp Story" allows the reader to understand how and why Hank made many breeding decisions to create the great "Wiescamp horse". After this book, you too will appreciate what Hank Wiescamp has done to create many of the modern breeds.

Hats off to Hank...... Highly recommend this book for all. Pictures, pedigrees and stories. However, 207 pages could not begin to touch the surface of the 70 years it took to create the "Wiescamp horse".

"This ingenious attempt to explain the mysteries of Chinese politics to Western readers has two unusal features...a kaleidoscope of photographic images for which [the author's] lucid text serves as a kind of continuous caption. ...It provides as vivid a sense of the complexities of Maoist China as any book yet published. ...should help to clarify the traditinal image of China in the American mind, an image that has often swung capriciously from sentimental enthusiasm to angry disappointment and back again" Richard Bernstein; TIME Magazine, September 6, 1976

This book was very through in explaining the breed. It was eazy to understand and follow. Would recommend this book to people thinking of breeding or showing. It was very informative.

Betty Whelen was one of the first Americans to breed and show shelties, and she was continued to be a force in the breed up until her death last year. A wonderful book for anyone whose life has been changed by dogs.

I recommend this book. It comes across as a quick and fun read about a nerdy kid and some of the equally nerdy parents and adults who should have been keeping an eye on him, but it teaches a lesson about what can happen when some dedicated person goes to far on their own personal mission of discovery.

Some of the other reviewers criticize Silverstein for including the background material on the nuclear power industry, but I think it put the events in the book into the right context, and help to explain how David Hahn was able to get as far as he did with his nuclear experiments.

While the book does have a sarcastic tone throughout, it is actually kind of scary to think how this one boy was able to concentrate enough radioactive isoptopes from various innocuous sources (like smoke detectors) to essentially have the makings of a "dirty bomb". If David Hahn had evil intent, he could have hurt a lot of people. As it was, he really was just a boy scout who went too far in his "hobby".

While Silverstein didn't dwell on it too much, we should take David Hahn's actions as a warning about how easy it is to construct a dirty bomb. I hope enough people in high places have taken heed.

Fantastic true story. "The Radioactive Boy Scout", brings back memories of my days when I built and shot a rocket off in my bed room, set the bed on fire. Obtained a neon sign transformer and built a Tesla Coil, scaring the neighbor lady next door to death. She had a heart attack. How in Boy Scouts, three of us ditches a Saturday project of delivering political fliers. We through them in a vacant field, and took off for better things to do. We here in Michigan do it all!
Yes this book is a must on everybody's shelf.

I was David's scoutmaster when he was preparing for his Eagle Scout Board of Review. I was to contact five registered adult Scout leaders, who would comprise the Board. One prospective adult told me he could not sit on the Board, because "something happened".

I learned that David and some friends were stopped by the cavaliering Clinton Township (Michigan) Police, who were randomly stopping teens and searching their cars for stolen tires.

David was not allowed to keep his experiments in his stepmother's home, so he kept everything in his car trunk. The cops found no tires, but saw his stuff and overreacted.

Days later, David's father phoned and said that David would no longer pursue the Eagle Scout rank.

A month or so later, a man claiming to be a reporter phoned my home, wanting to do a telephone interview about David. After a few moments, I refused. There was something negative about the line of questioning.

As a Scout, David was always clean-cut, polite, and well-liked by the other boys. My take is that David had the scientific curiosity of a Tesla or Edison; not of an evil prankster.

David's father, like so many divorced and re-married men, walked a tightrope between caring for his son and appeasing a new bride.

As for Mr. Silverstein, he should keep his story factual, and keep his opinions about Scouting to the editorial pages.

This is an excellent non-fiction quick read at just under 200 pages. It is a true story about a teenager, David Hahn, who ventured to build a nuclear breeder reactor with little protection from radioactivity. He used a potting shed as a laboratory and a few old college textbooks from his dad for knowledge on radioactive materials. David became increasingly secluded at school as he continued to experiment with dangerous chemistry. His grades dropped, and no one believed he could do anything to raise eyebrows. He ignored laws and cautions, obtaining many radioactive materials like beryllium, radium, polonium (210!), and americium to recreate the Curie couple's feats. He succeeded in creating a nuclear reactor but could not stop the increasing radioactivity, resulting in catastrophe. Finally, the federal government had to dismantle his reactor, as it was a great danger to people who lived near David.

I think this book is a worthy read. It is a fascinating story with great description. The author, Ken Silverstein, was very good at highlighting facts and things that happened in David's life that were related to his inspiration of building a nuclear reactor. However, I think Silverstein put a little too much history of atomic energy into the book. He is also slightly biased against nuclear power.

Overall, I think this book could have been written better, but still deserves a thumb up.

There's something not quite serious about The Radioactive Boy Scout. The book jacket has a cartoonish design and each page has a little atomic symbol by the page number. It's a small book, almost like a children's reader. It seemed to me as if it would be a quick, fun read.
Well, it was quick, all right. Author Ken Silverstein originally wrote this as an article for Harper's Magazine, according to the blurb. The article has been padded with several chapters on nuclear power, chemistry, and the history of the Boy Scouts. But The Radioactive Boy Scout is hardly a cartoon or a fun little story.

Although this is a story about how one teenager nearly built a nuclear reactor in his back yard, Silverstein wants us to know it is more than that. He emphasizes how David Hahn, the teenager, was neglected by his parents and not taken seriously by his teachers. If only someone had taken the time to take this boy under his wing, perhaps a near-disaster could have been averted. Certainly the fact that there was no disaster takes the edge off the story, but we already know what can happen when teenagers don't get the attention they need.

I enjoyed the main story as well as the chapters on science and the Boy Scouts. Silverstein describes how radium-based products were sold in the early 20th century as tonics, lotions, and even suppositories, to improve one's health. He recalls filmstrips (remember?) and pamphlets that cheerfully told us to "duck and cover" in the event of a nuclear explosion. He uses a hilarious passage from P.G. Wodehouse to illustrate a common view of the Boy Scouts in their early days.

Although I share most of Silverstein's opinions on federal government, the nuclear power industry, the Boy Scouts, and inattentive parents, I think the story would have been more effective if he had left his editorial comments out. Describing David's father as "pathologically oblivious" is unnecessary. True, but unnecessary.

New to this author and will not open another of her books. If one can't stand the protagonist,one can't enjoy the story, dog lover or not. Jo Beth is a nightmare of ego and self-righteousness, and her mental meanderings are dimwitted and sour. Too bad, as I had great hopes for the series.

I have read all of Ms Lanier's books regarding bloodhounds. They are so entertaining and gives me an idea of what the world of raising bloodhounds is. I am anxiously awaiting another book from her and would like to know when she has a new one out. Reading is so relaxing for me. And I like books that have a little mystery involved.

There seemed to be entirely too much going on in this story, to the point that I lost track of several subplots. Maybe this book showed the heroine in a worse light than most, but I didn't find her charmingly feisty, I found her extremely irritating. Maybe I am simply tired of Southern characters who brag about Southern manners and then are pig-rude to everyone they meet. I am willing to believe that she is more interesting than this book shows her, but I will probably never know. I am fascinated by bloodhounds and I *still* couldn't enjoy this book, so I do not plan to investigate the rest of the series.

If nothing else, any novel that would have a major character's murder trial occupy about two chapters squeezed into the end has got more problems than I care to think about. The fact that, under the circumstances described, the major character would probably never have been charged in real life only made that part more bewildering.

I plan to read a "How To" book about bloodhound training to cleanse my palate, and then never go near another book in this series ever again.

I have enjoyed the books in this series, but this is my least favorite by far. I found too many parts to be unbelievable; the protagonist was constantly alienating her friends and putting herself in extreme danger (more than usual....?). There were also a few side stories that were never really fleshed out or wrapped up, which was disappointing. And too much happened in the last chapter...cheap literary device used to tidy everything up. So, read it if you're reading the series, but skip it otherwise

I liked this book at least as much as the earlier ones in the Bloodhound series. Virginia Lanier provides a realistic tour of the nearly mystical abilities of the bloodhound and keeps the characters busy at the same time. JoBeth is balancing ten bloodhound pups, ten murder suspects, the nasty Bubba and her business all at one time. No wonder she's short-tempered. The astonishing information on the scent machine is true--I've seen it in action. She weaves the facts and the fictional characters together in an exciting story that has humidity and 'gators crawling out of the book's covers. A great read!