Clubs Books

Very sad, but an honest depiction of a part of Guatemala that we were exposed to during our recent visit. The poverty seemed crippling, and children in work roles were very common.

I love this book. Working in a library, I've been happy to be able to show it to so many people. The hero has a hard life and a mother who doesn't love him. But he has a roof over his head at his grandmother's house, and a simple determination to work, to help, and to learn.

There's an indescribable feel to this book, almost a scent, different from any other book. It really is a masterpiece.

I am from Guatemala City and currently living in the US, I read this book with my daughter and she loved it, this book has helped me to explain some of my culture to her. She knows that "anyplace can be the most beautiful place in the world..."

I have read this book aloud to my first and second grade students for years. It is an excellent story, well told, with all the realities of a different culture in a different situation than USA children. However, it is painted with the strokes of deepest, realistic love that a family can have. This is a great story to teach and talk about the struggles of families everywhere, the world and it's differences, and the importance of character "no matter what". It is the book my second graders yearn to read on their own and therefore is a super motivator. It is rich in geography.

The story that I read was really snappy and cool. It's called The Most Beautiful Place in the World By Ann Cameron. There was a boy named Juan and his grandmother. There was also Juan's mom. It takes place in San Pablo, Guatamala. The problem is she leaves him for ever and his mom doesn't let him visit her. He really loves his mom after his dad left them.Some one would want to read this book because its really sad and who ever loves tragedy or not it's a really good book.I recommend this book to people of any age.

Murder at the Carousel Club, July 13, 2008
By Chiquita Mullins Lee (Columbus, Ohio USA)

Barbara Fleming is a master of the set-up. She has a talent for unfolding a story and creating characters and scenarios that capture the imagination. We climb aboard the ride, our hunger whetted for the truth. Murder at the Carousel Club is her newest installment in the Matthew Alexander mystery series. Fleming weaves a third intriguing tale about homicide in Washington, D.C., where Detective Alexander again is elbow deep in crime.

Trouble comes courtesy of Junior Williams, a good-looking man who's used to getting his way. Junior's favorite haunt is the Carousel Club. Keeping it sassy is Suzy Evans, the Carousel's headliner, whose vocal stylings evoke comparisons to Sarah Vaughn. Suzy and Junior are having an affair. Most everyone knows this except Junior's daughter, Diane. Diane has an ongoing flirtation with Frank Porter, whose brother, Ken, owns the Carousel.

When she visits the club to say good bye to Frank, Diane is surprised to find Junior there, too. Junior, enraged about the relationship between sixteen year-old Diane and middle-aged Frank, loudly threatens to kill Frank. When Frank is found shot dead outside the club, and Junior lies unconscious in the parking lot, the sequence of events is obvious.

Or is it?

Detective Alexander quickly labels Junior the murderer. Junior's family insists he was too drunk to aim a gun. And what about charming, handsome Frank Porter? Was he really as popular as everyone said?

Round and round it goes. Just like a carousel. There are questions to ask. People to scrutinize. Memories to stir and resurrect.

Murder at the Carousel Club is a great read for steamy summer nights. Fleming deftly unravels a murder mystery and adds heaps of surprises. Here's to a hearty welcome, again, to Lt. Matthew Alexander. It's fun to have him back on the beat.

Barbara Fleming is a master of the set-up. She has a talent for unfolding a story and creating characters and scenarios that capture the imagination. We climb aboard the ride, our hunger whetted for the truth. Murder at the Carousel Club is her newest installment in the Matthew Alexander mystery series. Fleming weaves a third intriguing tale about homicide in Washington, D.C., where Detective Alexander again is elbow deep in crime.

Trouble comes courtesy of Junior Williams, a good-looking man who's used to getting his way. Junior's favorite haunt is the Carousel Club. Keeping it sassy is Suzy Evans, the Carousel's headliner, whose vocal stylings evoke comparisons to Sarah Vaughn. Suzy and Junior are having an affair. Most everyone knows this except Junior's daughter, Diane. Diane has an ongoing flirtation with Frank Porter, whose brother, Ken, owns the Carousel.

When she visits the club to say good bye to Frank, Diane is surprised to find Junior there, too. Junior, enraged about the relationship between sixteen year-old Diane and middle-aged Frank, loudly threatens to kill Frank. When Frank is found shot dead outside the club, and Junior lies unconscious in the parking lot, the sequence of events is obvious.

Or is it?

Detective Alexander quickly labels Junior the murderer. Junior's family insists he was too drunk to aim a gun. And what about charming, handsome Frank Porter? Was he really as popular as everyone said?

Round and round it goes. Just like a carousel. There are questions to ask. People to scrutinize. Memories to stir and resurrect.

Murder at the Carousel Club is a great read for steamy summer nights. Fleming deftly unravels a murder mystery and adds heaps of surprises. Here's to a hearty welcome, again, to Lt. Matthew Alexander. It's fun to have him back on the beat.

The riveted and suspense laden mystery, Murder at the Carousel Club so skillfully written by Barbara Fleming, proved to be a unique and refreshingly different kind of literary experience. It unveils, for the reader, social dynamics that are as educational as they are entertaining. These dynamics pulled my whole being into the mystery with intense curiosity, and just as forcefully, these dynamics provided an objective yet realistic prospective into the urban African American culture: the Black family; and very specifically... the constant threat (and frequent plight) of African American males in America today. Murder at the Carousel Club is a must read!

Murder at the Carousel Club is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Once I started reading it, I was hooked. It's not often that I find a writer who holds my interest from the beginning to the end of the book. The story and the characters in Murder at the Carousel Club were so believable; I could hardly wait to find out if the person charged with the murder actually did it. Although I live in Atlanta now, I used to live in Washington, D.C., so the setting and the place names were so familiar to me. I could just picture the scenes as the characters moved across the city landscape trying to solve the crime. I haven't read the author's previous books, but Murder at the Carousel Club was so entertaining, that I have made it a point to see if the other books are as good. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves reading a good mystery.

I recently read Barbara Fleming's new mystery novel Murder at the Carousel Club (Silver Maple Publications, 2008) and what a pleasure it was to read. Being a reader who searches for books that both hold my interest and entertain me at the same time, I savored every page of Murder at the Carousel Club. It is such a joy to finally find an author who knows how to tell a realistic, down-to-earth story in a fascinating way. Once I started reading, it was very hard to put the book down. I have read the two previous Matthew Alexander mysteries (Hot Stones, Cold Death (2001) and Murder on the Gold Coast (2005)) and enjoyed them as well, but I think Murder at the Carousel Club is the best mystery in the series to date.

In Murder at the Carousel Club, the playboy brother of the owner of the most exciting and popular night club in the District, the Carousel Club, is murdered in the parking lot of the club. The victim was shot in the head as he sat inside his expensive car. There are no witnesses to the murder and the primary suspect, who earlier that evening had threatened to kill the victim in front of everyone within earshot in the club, is found unconscious in the parking lot not far from the murder victim with no murder weapon. Barbara Fleming has written an intriguing, highly entertaining, hard-to-guess mystery that keeps you glued to your seat and flipping the pages of the novel as you keep reading and trying to guess how it all will turn out in the end. I loved the way she weaved images of the District, then and now, throughout the novel, especially, the descriptions of Anacostia which is on the cusp of being gentrified like the rest of the District.

I'm probably prejudiced because I was born when my parents lived in Anacostia in Washington, D.C.; but I think the author's evocation of the symbolism that Anacostia has held for D.C. residents over the years is very reminiscent of how my family and I experienced the community when I lived there as a child. Anacostia has always been the forgotten stepchild of the District, a beautiful but neglected gem across the river at the end of a very long bus route. In the 1970's when my mother used to ride the bus from where she worked at Hecht's department store on 7th Street to our home when I was a small child, she always complained that she got sick from the heat and fumes of the decrepit buses that were placed on the Anacostia routes--the worst buses in the District's fleet. She said that the District would have never sent buses like that on the northern routes up Connecticut or Wisconsin Avenues.

I hadn't thought about that in years, but as I was reading Murder at the Carousel Club, those wonderful old memories of Anacostia came flooding back. I remembered how my mother used to put me in my stroller when I was a toddler and take me for a walk down Nicholas Avenue to the five and dime on Good Hope Road and how much fun that had been. I remembered my mother taking me to the Smithsonian's Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in the old movie theater on Nicholas Avenue before it became Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue. Anacostia figures importantly in Murder at the Carousel Club although the plot is primarily centered in the Shaw community of Northwest D.C. where the Carousel Club moved after it was forced to leave Anacostia in the late seventies because of all the drug crime in the community at that time.

Of course Fourth District Police Headquarters is in Northwest as well and Matthew Alexander and his wife Carla have been residents of LeDroit Park in Northwest D.C. since the series began. Unlike the previous books, Murder at the Carousel Club takes a slight detour in that Detective Lieutenant Matthew Alexander and his partner Sergeant Jake Jackson get some uninvited help from a character that made a short but memorable appearance in Murder on the Gold Coast, Frederick Douglass Washington. Fred Washington was both an ex-convict who had spent seven years in Lorton Reformatory for drug trafficking and the uncle of the murder suspect Gary Washington in Murder on the Gold Coast and what a character he was. I think Barbara Fleming made a very wise decision when she reprised Fred Washington because he gives Lieutenant Alexander an able assist and some stiff competition in solving the Murder at the Carousel Club, a great book and a truly memorable story that is well worth your time and effort.

T.K. Washington, D.C.

I highly recommend this inspirational book to all. I delight in reading about the life that is around us that we do not normally observe. In many cases, the best fiction writers could not compete with nature.

Have yet to see a purple cow? How about a slithy trove? Despair no more. In this lovely book, Cathie Katz transforms the FAMILIAR into passing strange phenomena. Her secret? Attention to detail. Waving her "charming rod" of magnification over the common creatures of everyday life, she presents each one as a wish fit for the gods without sacrificing its connection to Earth and to us. Thanks to Cathie, we can now put away the shadows of childish imagination and embrace the sometimes frightening, always magical, fellow travelers of our own existence.

I will no longer walk by an insect, bird or plant without some new found knowledge and a willingness to share our surroundings. Kind of like living among people, there are some good traits and some irritaing traits but nevertheless we can exist in harmony. The illustrations are talent ladden enhanced by the whimisical little stick figure Larry. If you can read just a day at a time without longing to cancel all on the agenda you are ahead of me but for times when all we can squeeze in is one page our world will become brighter and more alive to us. So enjoy and let that spider make his web without that tidiness gene taking over.

*Nature a Day at a Time* delivers just that, a brief glimpse into common plants and animals while revealing how often overlooked wildlife in our everyday lives actually have strong connections to who we are and how we live. Each page unfolds the days of the year with a short introduction and drawing that illuminates the earwig and the praying mantis, rove beetles and crab grass, bladderwort and giant swallowtail.

Though this book may seem deceptively simple in its approach, it is actually a great way to start off your day as it will open up your eyes and your senses to the natural world that surrounds you - even if you live in a concrete jungle - which will lead you to your own daily discoveries of wildlife in your life. After 365 days of reading this book, you will find that you live in a whole new world.

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A Guide to my Book Rating System:

1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

Cathie Katz starts out writing about no-see-ums, crab grass and cricket-frogs and somehow ends up with human nature, life, the universe and everything.

Katz is a Melbourne Beach writer, naturalist and sea-bean expert who fields queries from beachcombers around the world as editor of "The Drifting Seed," a newsletter about sea beans (or more properly, rain-forest drift seeds.)

Her new book, "Nature, a Day at a Time: An Uncommon Look at Common Wildlife," contains 365 mini-essays about 365 forms of life, ranging from viruses to possums. Each day's entry begins and ends with a literary quote and features one of her illustrations. Like her writing, her detailed pen-and-ink drawings are a good balance of factuality and whimsy.

A simple format, but deceptively so. These entries are linked by some profound, half-submerged themes -- our kinship with the natural world, the way our personal nature can be found in daily nature around us, the fascinating natural processes going on immediately around us. And it is this kind of accessible natural world -- worms and viruses and backyard birds -- rather than Discovery Channel-style big and exotic wildlife -- that makes up the days in her book.

"Nature a Day at a Time" is a good year.

I read this book when I was younger as well and then had the pleasure of reading it to my daughter when she was young. Now I have a copy hidden away for her when she has her own children. It has become a family tradition and an enjoyable time spent reading it to your children. It also lets one relive the book as well.

I am a 60 year-old who never forgot this book. We traveled to Florida when I was 9 and stayed in many motels. Now my 1 year old grandson lives in California and I hope that when he is old enough for this book, motels will still exist!

I turned 58 today. I read this book MANY times as a child, when books were just about the only friends I had. To say that the memory of this book has stayed with me all these years should say something significant about the book. I was born and raised in Florida so it was very real to me. My father died when I was six, and that made it more real. I cannot recommend this book highly enough...5 stars is not enough. It definitely rates a 10. It is a book I want my great-nieces and nephews to read.

I first read this book my older sister had gotten through the weekly reader. I identified with the family in this story very much as I was the youngest in a family where the father had just died, younger than Betsy, the youngest in this family. I appreciated it very much because there are so many stories and often I felt pitied for being in a family where the father had died, and I saw these were normal kids having fun and just as smart, capable and full of average strenths and weaknesses as any other kid. I also liked the title very much as we lived in an apartment complex where pets likes cats and dogs weren't allowed. I think reading it helps people see this and realize kids are basically the same regardless of family circumstances.

I loved this book when I was a girl. I remember re-reading it several times. I liked the interactions between the kids and especially was intrigued by the little mystery. This is a wonderful book for both boys and girls.

I love this little book, and it will work for ages 8-80! Materials are simple and inexpensive;craft paint, brushes, rocks. There are colorful pictures and easy to follow instructions. The 3-D lizards and "food" rocks are unique, and the mystery eggs are easy for the youngest painters. I collect lots of beach rocks and can see a use for them other than just tossing them into the garden. This would be a wonderful hobby for those who enjoy crafts and don't want to do large paintings. I am now making a "kit" for my nieces for Christmas that will include all the necessary materials and the book.

I work with children, after school, and they are excited about painting on rocks. Product is perfect for their projects. thanks

Fun & cute. Have inght eyes to bring the rock to life. Step-by-step detail instruction & ill. Fine publication.

It was in great condition and arrived in a timely manner.

We bought this book for our four year old Granddaughter for Christmas. She absolutley LOVES this book. She loves rocks and loves to paint. It is an excellent family activity also. We got the rocks at our local garden center although, we live in the country and have gathered rocks from the creek too which added to the fun. We've painted on both and they are wonderful. The first time she came over after Christmas is when we used the book. We spent hours painting and she felt really good after seeing what she had created. We even got her Uncles (ages 18 and 19) involved and we all had great fun with this. I would recommend this book for all ages!

Now that I have purchased this one as well as Verismo, I have come to love this one even more. I again have many, many favorites and was very difficult to choose just one favorite! But, through reading more and more, I have found one to call my own!
Again, thank you Dech, for making my mind go deep inside my inner souls of souls, and realize the ways of our worlds. I
Love you my friend and I CANNOT wait to get my hands on Puppets mountain!

Decheonbae is a very good writer and he really knows his stuff. Iwas given this book for a gift now I buy this book to give to others!

Pearls of Justice seems to cover everything in a poetical way-life, dreams, and society. This is not your run of the mill poetry book! This is a book of reason and Justice for self and humanity, I am confident that Decheonbae is only going to higher levels in his next set of writing's but somehow I think he did it now. I can only be amazed of what this man do next because he is breaking all traditional barriers! I must say he is a challenging young indivisual with a extreme view on life and I am glad that I finally recieved my book! I must say like the others, this book is definetly 'something new and promissing"-this man got talent and from what I've been hearing "VERISMO" is a must have! I just want to say keep it up Decheonbae Jones, I can tell you have what it takes thus more.

Hello every one I am new to Decheonbae Jones poetry and must say he is a GOD in my book. You can not deny him and the treasure he posses in the meaning behind his works. I am a very shock on the way that he just jumps out on you and really explains the humanity of truth, I swear he is bonafide and gifted in the arts. My job seems so much easier now with his knowledge,I don't see how he can possibilty do better than VERISMO but if he do I will be there. "Hey DECHEONBAE if you write a novel what is it going to be about, I really want to know more of your mind!"

'Love it was robust..."

This is Poetry of an different style, Evil; but sacred genius of description- Possible but Known Humanity, Robust passions in a way of grains, Plus love of non-fictional-bless too beyond mistakes, My pattern yet they are lost into jeopardy- Perhaps I am of who you thought, So Behold I am in danger but Love was Pre-hemp too past tense then Rehearse of cause general, ... - By Decheonbae Thanks you Jones, ...

THE ONLY POET...-:!!!111,

The new book sooner than you think my love "PuppetsMountain,"

Decheonbae Jones- Welcome'

Ohhhh Petunia!!! Believe it or not I found this book for 50 cents at a thrift store in mint condition having never read it before, by far the best deal I ever got with money from the bottom of my purse! Petunia is a silly goose for sure thinking just cause she "finds" a book one day that carrying it under her wing is enough to make her wise, but of course its not and proud, proud Petunia keeps stretching her neck out and butting her big neck into everyones troubles and only making them worse till one day it finally blows up in her face (literally)! But that was the best thing that could have happened to the silly goose cause it humbled her back to where her little neck belonged and teaches her its not enough to just carry a book but to learn to read it and thats the way to be wise in your mind and your heart, and maybe then she can truly help her friends! Absolute Classic!!! A good spoonful of humble pie right at bedtime.

This is a book I remembered vaguely from my own childhood and bought for my son on a whim. He loves it. In fact, he received it on Christmas day and has insisted that it be read at bedtime every night since then. Literally.

So, will your child love it? Probably so. Will you? Probably so, at first. For our part, my husband and I are growing a little weary of it. But in the land of childrens books, that's probably the best you can hope for, right?

The illustrations are fun and entertaining and the language is clear and fun. I'd give this as a gift again, or would certainly recommend it to others.

Petunia is a silly goose who finds a book and believes she'll be wiser if she's seen carrying it around. And the other barnyard animals actually think she *is* wiser because of it. The thing of it is, she's still just a silly goose, who gets her friends into all sorts of scrapes.

"Petunia" is a pleaser but gets a little too philosophical in the last two pages. That's okay-- the first pages and clean 1950s illustrations make up for it. A classic.

Petunia is a goose, she finds a book and suddenly realises that she must be very intelligent. So she carries the book around under her arm. Other animals in the farm come to her for advice which she dispenses, but usually without good results. Then she comes across a box, she thinks she knows what to do - unfotunately her advice is not good for dealing with a box of fireworks.

There is disaster and Petunia has enough sense to realise that she has not gained any knowledge from simply carrying a book around but must read what is within the pages.

An appealing and quirky book. Also try out Petunia's Christmas. Very good child appealing parables.

Petunia was a fourth grade favorite of mine many years ago. Her "wisdom" was so cleverly revealed in the end that I kept the book checked out of the school library all year long.

Oil affects us all more and more financially, environmentally and geopolitically as time passes. This engaging biography provides wonderful insight into the incubation of our current oil markets. Rubino also gives us a memorable image of a unique brave pacesetter for investigative business journalism, her uniqueness amplified by the fact that she was a woman. You will never read another article about this vital resource in the same way after being impacted by this book.

While I expected to find Queen of the Oil Club to be an educational read, I wasn't prepared for the page turner I found. Rubino's first person and you are there approach to Wanda's amazing life was riveting. So far,I've recommended it to friends looking for a lively summer read, writer friends, my graduate student niece who is pursuing Women's Studies and a friend who grew up in Saudi Arabia in the 1960's. There's something there for each of them.

The seeds of today's oil crisis were sown during the five decades that Wanda Jablonski reported on industry events and, through that reporting, influenced their outcome. To understand the current surge of oil nationalism on the part of both producer and consumer nations that will determine the future of hydrocarbons for years to come, we need to go back to the earlier rise of oil nationalism that led to the creation of OPEC. This book takes us there through the life of an extraordinary woman. Wanda, her first name sufficed to identify her whether in the court of the King of Saudi Arabia or the Exxon executive offices, had access to the boardrooms and bedouins that created the oil machine. She spoke the truth to their faces and told her readers what went on behind the curtain. In an all-male oil world, she earned respect and fear for the power she wielded as a journalist who knew as much or more about this crucial industry than the men who ran it. Anna Rubino captures Wanda, a strangely reclusive woman who quietly re-wrote the rules of business journalism and influenced the world we live in today.

Review for "The Queen of the Oil Club"
Anna Rubino takes us into the world of oil in the 1950's through the eyes of a remarkable woman, Wanda Jablonski. In this clearly readable book the reader is exposed to the personalities of the industry leaders, the look and feel of the Middle Eastern cities and the customs and concerns of its people. Filled with high drama, this book tells a fascinating and timely story, perhaps even more relevant in view of today's oil crisis.
Donald and Kathie Eppert

Anna Rubino was a brilliant scholar of history at Yale as she pursued her PhD. Now she has written a brilliant historical study, impeccable in scholarship but also timely and exciting. Five stars all around.
--William Lilley III, a Yale history faculty member when the author was a graduate student.

My grandmother bought this book for me when I was about 10 years old. I read through the pages and looked at the illustrations way back then--and I still can tell you the capital of every state--recalling the picture I learned all those years ago!! I'm buying a copy for my children so that's one less thing we'll have to stress over!

I knew this book was great when I was younger - so much so, that I saved it and now it's helping my boys learn too! I knew all my Capitals soon after getting this book - and I still do today - 25 years later! You can't go wrong with this book!

My dad bought me this book when I was about 3. By the time I went to kindergarten, I knew all the capitals, all the presidents and had learned a wealth of memory tricks that has served me for the rest of my life. Our copy got destroyed, so I guess I buy it used (for my son).

This book is the BEST book to use in order to learn capitals, or the order of the presidents. It teaches with pictures, so that they stay in your memory. I would recommend it to everyone who wants to learn the capitals of America's states.

It was one of the best learning tools I had growing up. The pictures and stories work so well together and truly assisted in learning the capitals and presidents. It was great fun learning with this book. I wish I still had a copy

A very beautiful, very human portrayal of Mary, Mother of God. Houselander steps into the heart of Mary and reveals to us a real, down-to-earth wife and mother with whom we can identify. Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike will be pleasantly surprised: "Mary of Nazareth is not so different from me!"

This beautiful work sat near me on a bookshelf for years before I picked it up to read. Now I've read it again and again and enjoy it more each time. Caryll stirs the spirit and will inspire many reflections. She conveys a deeply spiritual message with a writing style that is simply a joy to read.

Through the words and illustrations of this book what shines through is the beautiful love of a woman for Christ and His Church. It is a devotional work, interspersed with Houselander's poetry. She writes from an early twentieth century English outlook and thus her chapters are interspersed with examples from the war. She doesn't get stuck in this contemporary setting though, but rather effectively uses it to bring the life of the Christian to greater clarity. In the course of the book she accomplishes two things beautifully. First she shows the importance for the Christian of a relationship with Mary. How the example of Mary can inspire and guide us, especially in difficult times, and how we can turn to her as an intercessor and mother. Secondly, she shows how Mary draws us towards Christ, and how ultimately our relationship with Mary is senseless otherwise.

This book, written in 1944 (I believe) is just wonderful. It, more than anything I have read, has brought me closer to Our Blessed Mother, and hence, to Christ Himself. Filled with lyrical prose and touching analogies, Houselander shows how Mary was the "Reed of God" waiting to be filled (with her maternity)...and that we are ALL vessels waiting to do God's work, and carrying Christ within us. Just remarkable.

What a wonderful book! I would highly recommend it to all who are wanting a closer relationship with Jesus and His Mother,It is a very profound book written by a convert!