W-League Books

This is one of the best books I've ever read. Not one page was boring. I would recommend this book to anyone.
The author does such a great job on her research, I really wish there where other books she wrote that were similar to this story.
This book would be 6 plus stars if that was an option. Buy it now!!!

Being from philly, i know alot of the characters in this book. that being said, i know alot of the characters in alot of gangster books written about philly, and alot of them suck or are a bunch of lies. this one is an exception! it's true, interesting and very detailed. so detailed that there's a chapter that basically tells you step by step how to re-rock coke. Carol Saline did a great job. i was impressed. AAAAAAA+++++++

also, 'doctor dealer' is pretty good too. it was written by mark bowden, the guy that wrote 'black hawk down'. both authors are local philly writers.

An interesting tale of Larry Lavin. A dentist with a career ahead of him. The Lure of money led to him dabble in the "Candy" of the 1980's. Intriguing was how he hid so close to the authorities as a fugitive. Good reading. Perhaps he was pursuing what many of taught is the American Dream....well worth the read.

At first, I just went to the place at amazon where it says: "Already Own It? Rate It" and I clicked on "five stars." Then I was referred to other books I might like based on my rating. They referred me to books about writing for children! NO. This book is not about the ABC's. It is about scapegoating. Glasser is a psychologist who works a lot on helping people (children and adults) learn to take responsibility for personal behavior. Children and adults need to break free of the "blame game." This is an insightful little book. I highly recommend it.

This book is packed with great anecdotes illustrating how government regulation has made our cars less safe and driving more dangerous, all with the best of intent by regulators. It is superb, and should be read by every libertarian for this alone. Of course the book also lays out just how our government has gone astray from the intent of the founders.

This is a beautiful book - the words are written with that fine style that only Hudson can do and the illustrations by Keith Henderson are striking in that they look like block prints! Wonderful book in general and this edition is especially nice. :)

This is an extremely useful book for anyone involved in youth baseball. Not only does it go through the basics of the game, it offers a huge amount of information concerning the role that each player/position has on the field.

As an added bonus, it includes the complete "Official Little League Rules" as well. The only drawback is that because it was printed in the early 90's, you will have to dig a little to find the revisions to make it current.

Whether you're a parent, a coach, an asistant coach or a league director, this book is well worth the price.

my review from the POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL:
The struggle for Poland, during the 123 years between the Third Partition in 1795 and her recovery of independence in 1918, was fought not just with bullets but with song. Prussia, Russia and Austria did not just seek Poland's political extermination. They also strove to eliminate Polish identity by attacking her language and culture. Poles were not just to feel they were a subject people under the boot of a foreign empire; they were to stop feeling like Poles. Keeping Polish identity and culture alive, therefore, was in some ways even more important than such failed military uprisings as 1830 and 1861.

That's why Polish choral groups began springing up in 19th century occupied Poland, starting first with the Prussian Partition. That's why Prussian police kept such a close eye on choral rehearsals. That's why, in the Russian Partition, Czarist censors forbade the use of the word "Polish" to describe the music the choirs sang. Until 1905, choirs could only sing "folk" (ludowa) or "domestic" (domowa) music.

The Polish Singers Alliance of America (PSAA), established in Chicago in 1889, had a similar raison d'etre to its Polish counterparts. Founders Antoni and Konstanty Mallek were not rarefied aesthetes, though they had sophisticated tastes. The PSAA did not promote ars gratis artis, but existed to "'fire . . . young hearts, awaken . . . in them a love of God and Fatherland, and a love of people and brothers and sisters . . . " (p. 26).

The PSAA would keep Poles Polish through music. 19th century America also posed challenges for Poles. Assimilation was a powerful force, and Poles had come here voluntarily. 19th century immigrants often had only a rudimentary education, with limited contact with Polish "high" culture. The job of creating, on foreign soil, a Polish national consciousness among Galicians, Mazovians, and Pomeranian peasants would be no mean feat. It was a challenge to which the PSAA rose.

There were, of course, musical outlets in church choirs, but the PSAA represented something different. It sought to cultivate the Polish secular music tradition. Blejwas called the PSAA an "ideological organization" because, unlike the fraternals, it was never a money-making business but rather an institution driven by its ideal.

Through ten chapters, the author chronicles the PSAA's history from its origins through the late 1990s. (M.B. Biskupski's "Forward" seeks to provide information on the most recent developments in the institution). The PSAA's history mirrors the history of many Polonian institutions: internal schisms resulting in organizational breakup; prolonged incumbencies and "leaders" who did not know when to leave; chronic underfunding; and the viccissitudes of change within Polonia caused by assimilation, loss of Polish language ability, and demographic change.

Blejwas tells the story of division and reconciliation; adaptation in the second and subsequent generations; the impact of war; dilemmas of cultural cooperation with Communist Poland, a state nominally free but hardly free in the sense Polonia understood that word; and changes within Polonia that have left PSAA membership largely static for decades. Blejwas always situates the history of the PSAA against the backdrop of the history of American Polonia as well as of key events in Poland. The author shows the deft hand of a professional historian, always aware of proportion and perspective. His style is that of a writer one wants to read.

The actual narrative history of the PSAA runs 185 pages. The book is rounded out with 52 black and white illustrations and lots of supplementary information such as lists of national officers, member choirs (including children's choirs), honorary members, and songs used in winning repertoires at national convention competitions. There is a section of brief biographies of select PSAA figures as well as impressive notes and bibliography.

This was Blejwas' last book, completed just before his death in 2001. Happily, it has finally seen the light of day. Numerous sponsors apparently subvened this work, although it still totes a hefty pricetag. It fills the need for a contemporary history of one of Polonia's smaller, albeit important national organizations. The book shows what a loss American Polonia suffered with the passing of Stan Blejwas. Recommended.

I love this cookbook! The recipies are great and there is more than just pork recipies. Also from the same Junior League is their new cookbook First Impressions: Dining with Distinction. This is a must have. The carmel cashew cheesecake is sooo good and easy! I recommend either of these books. Keep up the good work Junior League of Waterloo-Cedar Falls. I can't wait for your next cookbook!!

Here's your copy, pilgrim, of the book that lists the players and all of the stuff of researchers of the "League of their own" and a great reference book for any library, public or private. I've used it more than expected and recommend it as my primary source for All American Girls Professional Baseball players. Several other SABR members have it, as well and I haven't heard a single bad word yet. Well done!

Mark Braun
Old Timers' Baseball Association of Chicago

Written with amazing detail and sensitivity, "A Hope In the Unseen" manages to avoid making trite observations about race or poverty, which is uncommon

The protagonist makes no excuses for himself. I love that. I think he realised early on (after the book was written) that he wanted to be most of all "real." It wasn't to be about how he overcame, living in the ghetto etc but more importantly, the emotions and finding himself.
At certain points, I am like this kid is not a very pleasant person but even with that I could understand where he was coming from. This made him real.
He also along the way learnt he was in charge of his and only his destiny. He couldn't pull his siblings up. or his mom and I think for the longest time that must have irked him a lot.

He had to also learn to let go of this incessant rage murking in his soul. He had to face these demons so he could finally interact in the real world in a full capacity. This was not easy for him to do and he had so many missteps.

This is a tale not fairy tale perfect but gritty and still on-going, right now as we speak.

Cheers,

Great book. It details the last year in high school, and the first year in college of Cedric, a determined, intelligent inner city black kid who fights to make it out of the ghetto and to the promised land -- an ivy league college where he won't be taunted, beaten and despised for being smart.
I lost my first copy, and went out and bought a second. I loan it out to anyone I can. Cedric's story is very compelling and inspirational. I love to give it to people whose idea of a rough upbringing is that the family only owned one car . . .

This book is another ghetto story that has a lot of rhetoric regarding "inner city" life that is packaged to appeal to those who have no idea that this is pure bulls**t. In the book the high school is described as a place where learning is discouraged and success is frowned upon. I was raised in Detroit (the real Detroit, not the suburbs) and I attended Detroit Public Schools. Furthermore I taught for Detroit Public Schools for six years and currently teach for Columbus Ohio City Schools. With about two decades of "inner city" school involvement as a teacher and a student, I have RARELY seen someone picked on because they got good grades. There are some serious issues with inner city education but it is not how they portrayed it. I have seen many students like Cedric and some of them were harassed. It was not because they were smart or had good grades; it was because they were socially clumsy and immature. Students who are socially immature are harassed in many schools, not just in the "inner city". Additionally, the book never mentions what happens to his classmates. The tone implies that they are stuck Southeast Washington. I understand that this book attempts to expose the trials and tribulations of a "inner city" student but it does so by portraying negative and untrue images. If someone wants to read the book to understand the life of an "inner city" student, don't read this book, go to an "inner city" school and see for yourself.

A Hope in the Unseen was an engaging read and I absolutely fell in the love with the beginning. Cedric's life was put into a perspective that I could connect to and it was as if I could see everything through is eyes. It is a story that is uplifting and can be appreciated by people of any gender or color.

However, I did find a few things to frown upon. One part of the book that bothered me was the constant racial labeling. Understandably it is one of the main themes throughout the story and it is what makes this book so appealing to many. You get to see a struggling young black man make it out of a situation where many others would have gotten swallowed up. Yet, to me it became annoying because when I would finally reach a moment when I could connect to the characters as people the writer, and sometimes Cedric, would draw the whole focus back to who was what race and where they come from. It is great to be proud of who you are and what your background is but it doesn't have to define you.

During one of the later chapters we encounter Cedric and Zayd eating lunch. Zayd's friend, Josh, wanders over and immediately Cedric makes a remark about he should not be seen with two white guys. Whether he meant it jokingly or not it hurt Josh's feelings and created an awkward situation. Maybe it's because I just don't understand it but I think it was a little insensitive of Cedric. This was the only flaw that I had problems ignoring. It just seemed as if Cedric felt that he was entitled to be at Brown simply because he was a minority. Even if he wasn't in the minority, I sense a certain attitude that develops from attending an ivy league institution. It is almost as if by having your name on their roster that it makes you superior to everyone else.
This is definitely not the case and if people to hold on to such a mentality is disturbing.

Another problem I had with the novel was that after finishing such an uplifting story you start wondering what is next and if the system has ever changed. Sure, Cedric made it out and became successful but what about everyone else who was left behind? What about the students who were not as academically inclined or those who were not fortunate enough to have people supporting and pushing them like Cedric did? This book gives people an insight into a world that many are oblivious to. This could have been a great opportunity to open people's eyes about social injustice and to spark their interest in finding a way for more students to become like Cedric. I believe the author could have steered this book into becoming a link between the readers and social activism. Plenty of people have either had similar experiences or are now more aware of such situations and would be more than happy to support and contribute to any programs that are trying to turn this around. I believe more could have been done with A Hope in the Unseen in this regard.

All in all, this story was fairly interesting and inspiring. It was definitely helpful to read about the transitions from high school to college and to see how one person dealt with the common worries of university life. However, I do not see myself recommending this to many people and I believe that it is highly overrated. I do not believe it is "formula shattering" as one reviewer described it. In fact I think it follows the basic guidelines to any underdog story. I felt as if I could have been reading any number of stories, except with a different setting and character. A Hope in the Unseen is good for classroom reading assignments or book clubs because it has many discussion points and may lead readers to be more aware of the various issues it touches on. Other than that, I must truthfully say that I would not have read this given the chance to choose it for myself.

I bought this book 7 years ago and i don't know how many times i've read it after reading it cover to cover the week i first got it! It's been borrowed by friends and taken on vacations and has started and ended many debates and arguments over the greatest teams in MLB history. It's a unique book with chapters on each team consisting of statistical info like seasonal win-loss records and post season results, pennant races, how they fared against contenders, runs scored & allowed & sabermetric figures like Pythagorean Winning Percentage and Offensive Winning Percentages. The every day lineup for each team is posted and commented on. Bench players are listed too and seasonal stats are given for both. The pitchers get the same treatment and are fully scouted. Then we get to the really fun part like how they were built, what brought them down, most valuable player, worst regular, Hall of Famers, the Pennant Race, the Series and the Ballpark where the team resided. Each team has several essays by the author's on the team's seasonal highlights, important & not so important players & World Series appearances as well as fascinating debates on baseball lore like the recent questioning of the brilliance of the Tinkers to Evers to Chance infield of the 1906 Cubs & what might have been for the immensely talented but tragically flawed Darryl Strawberry. A Must Have for lovers of baseball this will simultaneously keep the hot stove burning and the rain delay blues away.

If you are the type that thinks that pennants are won with 90% guts and a winning attitude, rather than talent, stay away. But if you are a Moneyball fan, you'll like this.

To Bryan Lutes of Aurora, Illinois: The 72-74 A's are covered in the book. They are covered in Chapter 15. They are one of the fifteen teams that are rated as great dynasties.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading the book, but I found the book to be lacking in continuity. It's a difficult book to read from cover-to-cover due to the abundance of statistical analysis, but all of the number-crunching done in the book is rather anticlimactic. The issue of "who is the greatest team of all time" is handled more as a sidebar than as the main theme of the book. I thought the authors would have been better served discussing the statistical quirks that were generated by the number crunching and different types of `dynasties' discussed (like the 1975-1985 Royals). Instead, we got a lot of different methods to conclude "Boy, those 1961 Yankees sure did hit a lot of homers", which isn't very interesting. In terms of personal opinion, I was disappointed that a 3-peat team like the 1972-1974 A's was left out of the book because they didn't win 100+ games in the regular season. It demonstrated that although there was a plethora of statistical references, the overall criteria as to deciding what constitutes a dynasty was as vague and unexplained as the authors' opinions on the greatest dynasty of all-time.

If you enjoy statistical arguments about the relative greatness of different teams, mixed with interesting historical anecdotes, this is for you. Well-written, intelligent and engrossing. I love it.