Agent Books

This eye witness account delivers a great true story. The main theme of the book is doing underground operations while having constant above board dealings with the enemy. The writing style is very readable, although I got lost a little when references were made to various towns.

It starts with Andre being in manufacturing in support of the war effort, and a description of the German invasion as seen locally. There was a German anti-aircraft installation near where he lived which shot down several Allied planes throughout the war. Andre gets involved with the Underground when he decides to harbor some evading airmen. This involvement was not thrust upon him, he seeked it out. As his activities became known to people in the area, many of whom were sympathetic to the Allies, he became more involved with harboring downed airmen. He also became involved with the Passive Defense, an above ground French organization that did what they could to fight fires, discourage French and German looters, etc. While patrolling the town for the Passive Defense, they would simultaneously participate in Resistance functions like putting nails on the road at night to sabotage German vehicles and removing the nails in the morning. The looting and sabotage intensified during the chaos of the Allied Normandy invasion. The most violent thing he did in the book was to set a German truck on fire. I get the feeling that Andre may have participated in some violent acts but did not include them in the book.

In 1944 he was fingered by informers and arrested by the Gestapo, who beat him up very badly. The Gestapo gathered up other suspected Resistance members, and sent them together to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He and another prisoner were able to escape during a bomb raid while being transfered to another camp, and after a couple of weeks made contact with the Allied front.

I wish there had been more follow up on what became of the participants in the book after the war, and especially what became of the informants and collaborators. Maybe a later edition could add an appendix dealing with this.

Recommended reading for anyone who plans to file a tax return. Also would be valuable for anyone who is interested in the solvency of the Social Security System. The author is able to take us inside the IRS, and tell us what and how the agents are taught to think. He can do this, because he was an agent for three years, until the burden of doing what he felt was morally wrong, became too much to bear. Richard Green has the nerve to ask "What would happen if we scrapped the entire IRS..."(p.121). He then goes on to offer some alternatives that could make such a thing possible. He points out the benefits of exterminating the "IRS' unconscionable abuses and "business as usual" mentality..."(p.128). Not recommended for the faint-hearted.

When "Love, Eat, Pray" by Elizabeth Gilbert occupying the shelves of every bookstore in America - this fictional account of nevertheless true spiritual journey should be at least right next to it and perhaps in front of. It carries a message that by working on yourself we are ultimately working for the entire humankind and gives hope that anyone can find inner piece and experience true spiritual transformation

Seldom does a book appear that touches every aspect of what writers want and need to know about the art and business of getting published. But Sheri Williams' "An Agent's Point of View" does it all . . . and more. What a resourceful and highly informative work it is! As a published author and professor of writing, I have scoured book after book for the information Ms. Williams' offers in her valuable guide on a wide range of writing topics, from creating queries, formatting manuscripts, designing proposals, right down to the etiquette and ethics of agent-writer relationships. It's all here! Her writing is so smooth, her information is presented in an easy-to-read manner, and her words are so valuable that I wish I had this book before I began my journey to becoming a 14-book published author and critiquer of hundreds and hundreds of manuscripts. Take it from me - from someone who knows, from someone who has sweated through query and proposal writing, from someone who has received enough rejections to wallpaper her entire home -- that this is a must-have book for anyone who is tackling the challenge of writing. Ms. Williams has the nuts and bolts down pat, and gives it all in a most entertaining and understandable manner. It's a great job all around by an excellent writer!

Gianni Hayes, Ph.D
Author

This book gathers the most signifigant recent discussions of the free will problem. All of the fundamental positions-determinism, simple indeterminism, causal indeterminism and agent causation, are defended by their most eloquent proponents with novel and sophisticated approaches. With Contributors Nagel, Strawson, Dennett, Nozick, Chisholm, Ginet, Van Ingwagen, Clarke, Kane, Double, Fischer and Ravizza. I can honestly say that there is probably no better book for anyone interested in this old, tired debate.

Excellent retrospective insight into the evolution of the Pakistani Economy. I wish there were more of his books available for purchase here.

Alaska Broker is multimillionaire relator Edward Boyd's engaging autobiography spanning his life's story from 1927-1985, and encompassing terrible wars, dreams for the future, dogged pursuit of an honorable career, and much, much more. A highly enjoyable, articulate, and personal narrative, as well as a close look at life in the northernmost state of the United State, Alaska Broker makes for dynamic, entertaining, and highly recommended reading.

I thought Chris Kraus's first novel, "I Love Dick," charted a new direction for contemporary fiction while provoking profound questions about what counts as a "real" relationship and about all the forms of human relating that are developing as a result of new letter-writing cultures. "Aliens and Anorexia," Kraus's new book is even more brilliant and provocative. It wrests practices of female body asceticism such as anorexia and sadomasochism from the pathological dustbin and reconnects them with a tradition of ethical outrage and activism running from female saints to the philosopher-activist Simone Weil. Kraus has produced a book that breaks the boundaries of the novel and that is intellectually and emotionally wise.

It is an excellent book incorporating different aspects of alllelopathy both in natural and manipulated ecosystems. Besides it has some good chapters on the biological control of plant pests and weeds. All the articles are meticulously written and incorporate almost all the recent information about the subject. This book will be of immense help to the students, researchers, scientists and even the teachers in the field of Plant and Environment Sciences dealing especially with the plant-plant Interactions.

This book is compelling and the story is very good with very strong villians lots of actions and a good romance theme. Also it is the sign of the times it could be in 2004 or the future in our world or some alternate universe. It's fiction but it's written in such plain simple english. The adverage reader doesn't have to look into a dictionary to spell every word to know what the big words mean. It's not a boring book it's interesting. It's like looking at a movie in a book. It explains both sides of the story from the terrorists point of view and the Amercian Governments point of view. Through the characters and their behavior and motives. I'm certainly looking forward to reading the sequel to this book. It you like spy novels this is the one book you should read.

L.Harris