Block

Great examples of cover letters with explanation of what makes them great, but I only know this because I bought the printed version after not being able to read the examples AT ALL in the downloaded digital version. I even tried reading on a 19" high resolution monitor using the PC version of Microsoft Reader, .

The problem is that even though Microsoft Reader allows one to change the fonts of the print to suit the reader, scanned images like ALL the cover letter examples are not scalable, so it is impossible to distinguish an e from an o, l from an i, and so on.

Amazon should not sell books with graphics and fixed images in digital format, or at least should warn customers of the issue before they pay to download a book in digital format that has over 70% in unscalable, unreadable format.

This is the best book of its kind on the market. It's letters were varied and covered more topics than I needed, but will use in the future. Definitely worth the [money]!

This book was a great investment! The cover letters give you examples to use in your own letter and show you the strengths found in each cover. I actually took a highlighter to this book and highlighted my favorite lines and ideas out of certain letters. I then implemented them into my letter. Great for everyone, the professional or the inexperienced. YOU NEED THIS BOOK!

Finally, a book that not only makes sense but gives practical suggestions to help our children. The book, No More ADHD, is bigger and better and with much more information than Dr. Block's first book, No More Ritalin. No More ADHD examines the ADHD diagnosis and rips it to shreds with facts from the FDA, DEA and other sources. But most importantly, the author takes an unflinching look at the all too real and frightening dangers of the drugs that doctors give children who are labeled ADHD. The psychotic and cardiac symptoms alone should send up big red flags! But the book has answers. Dr. Block explains the real causes of attention and behavior problems and what parents can do to fix them. Before you and your child get caught up in the ADHD frenzy, you have to read this book. Your child is depending on you.

I recently saw Dr. Mary Ann Block on the CBS news program "48 Hours" and liked what she said about looking for the underlying causes of attention and behavior symptoms instead of giving risky drugs to cover the symptoms. So I got her book and I read it in one night. It was that good and that important. Dr. Block just plain makes sense and it was so exciting to finally get some practical information, I couldn't stop reading. I now understand all the possible factors that can be causing the ADHD symptoms and would never consider using drugs when there are so many safer and more reasonable options available. If anyone tells you that you or your child has ADHD, and you are fortunate enough to find this site and be reading this review, then, let me tell you, you have found the right book to read. It is No More ADHD by Dr. Mary Ann Block.

Dr. Block has put together an insightful analysis of the roots of the epidemic of ADD/ADHD labeling, while offering proven effective interventions for people seeking to address the causes that produce the symptoms associated with those labels. There are many physical, emotional, and environmental factors that contribute to inattentiveness and hyperactivity. Common discipline methods and drug treatments often aggravate these underlying imbalances and stressors, even if they temporarily create conforming/compliant behavior. While this book has improved on the scope of the author's previous book "No More Ritalin," I'd like to see a further expansion toward examining emotional and subtle energy factors that relate to ADD/ADHD symptoms, as these interact with biochemical/environmental factors addressed in the present book. Unfortunately, there are many parents and caretakers who are unwilling to make changes in their current habits of feeding, nurturing, and disciplining children. The more healthy options that can be presented, the better, since this increases the chances that parents and educators will try some beneficial approach. Dr. Block has done a solid job of exposing the fallacies and negligence of the established medical paradigm surrounding the ADD/ADHD issue.

As an undergrad taking his first finance class, I have have found this book to be quite useful. The concepts are explained in simplified, less-complicated ways and make reading each chapter less frustrating than perhaps some others (compared to some of the econ texts that I have had to use!).

It is well-written, concise, and employs some very straightforward, easy-to-follow graphs/diagrams. Also, both the formulas and the exercises at the end of each chapter are quite useful.

The only reason that I did not give it a 5-star rating is because some of the chapters did not use enough "real-world examples" or hypothetical situations in some of the more challenging lessons. This might better aid those students who are new to finance or simply need another angle to better grasp the idea.

Delivery was terrific. I received the book 6 days after I ordered it and it's brand new!

This book is very easy to follow and serves as a good reference for more advanced finance classes.

I am a huge fan of hardboiled P.I. fiction, and this is the first Matthew Scudder book that I've had a chance to read. And while I found the book to be a bit on the slow side in terms of action, the plot was so fascinating that I couldn't put it down. The book's real subject matter is death, and as one character says, man is the only animal who knows he's going to die. He's also the only animal that drinks. Somehow, there must be a connection. Those strictly interested in shoot-'em-ups and continuous action should look elsewhere. Those who like their P.I. stories on the philisophical side will love it.

As a character, I found Scudder interesting, especially his background and his continuous battle with alcoholism. Like any good P.I., he inhabits the landscape around him (in this case, Manhattan) so well that he becomes part of the scenery. I also didn't mind the fact that he was involved in a stable relationship (often a weakness in other P.I. serieses. A classic P.I. ought to be a loner). His love interest is just quirky enough to add spice to the story and isn't used merely to give him a contrived vulnerability. Overall, the best compliment I can pay is that I don't expect that this will be my last encounter with Scudder.

The premise is unusual - a secret society of businessmen, that started in ancient Babylon and has continued to this day. A set of 31 men, who gather once a year for a dinner, and patiently wait until only one remains, who selects 30 young men to regenerate the process. But somebody has noticed the current crop is dying at a rate well off the life insurance actuarial charts. Several of these deaths are obvious murders, but others that were dismissed as suicides or accidents are now being re-examined. Matt Scudder is employed to found out if there is a sinister plot to thin the ranks, and if so, why.

This book was outstanding. I love Lawrence Block's writing style, whether he's writing about Matt Scudder or Bernie Rhodenbarr. Can Matt Scudder uncover a mass murderer who has patiently worked for years before he strikes again? You'll be on the edge of your seat as you read this one.

There is something appealing (to some people, including me) about a 'secret society' that only meets once a year or so and whose membership is selected with no particular requirements beyond the nomination, even though it is a matter of the whim of the nominator. No dues, no qualifications, no rules (except silence about the club). This one has just 31 members, the last one living selecting the next 30, and has gone on for umpty generations. Now somebody is killing the members -- is it to 'inherit' the chairmanship? Apparently not, since a leading member asks Scudder to investigate. Like Rex Stout's "League of Frightened Men" this is a classic of this sub-category of detective-novel themes. The mystery is intriguing, and I am happy to say that Matt Scudder is selected to become a new member in spite of there being some survivors. He should be very proud to belong to such a society (even though it isn't mentioned in subsequent books, but maybe that's because it's supposed to be a 'secret society' -- in which case why did Scudder write about it? -- oh, well, that's the only way first-person narratives get written in the first place). Great idea for an old-man club, though they start out young. Meet once a year, eat well, and sigh 'well, I'm still here'.

With the 15th Matthew Scudder book due out December 2001 from Lawrence Block, I thought it would be a good time to re-read all of the initial 14, beginning with this, the first in the line. It's interesting to note that unlike many other extended series, Scudder holds true to the initial details set down by the author. He is not yet an admitted alcoholic, but the signs are beginning to show. He is willing to bend the law to suit his own set of moral values, which he has forever continued to do. There is a personal violence in this initial episode which is more self-controlled later on, but it is a progression that is realistic. There are a few unnecessary pages introducing the Elaine character which has nothing what-so-ever to do with this mystery and seems like simple filler to make the book an appropriate length. But, in future books, Elaine becomes a major participant. Could it be that Block already had her future role mapped out for her when he wrote this first book? The mystery isn't that good, I had it somewhat figured out about two-thirds into the story. But the grisly details are vividly described, the dialogue is hard boiled, and there is a feel for the locale that has become a trademark of the Scudder books. If you are Scudder fan, this is a must read. But, on whole, it is a little weak and maybe why Block himself suggests you read another book in the series first -- possible to better whet your appetite for more.

In the mid-1970s, P.I. Matthew Scudder was a lot differnt than the man he would come to be. In his series debut, Scudder has not yet admitted that he has an alcohol problem. Lawrence Block introduces us to the man who quit the NYPD because he just wasn't up to being a cop anymore. Scudder's first case (literary case, anyway) is fairly conventional by the standards of the series. Scudder is hired by the estranged father of a murdered girl not to find the killer, who is already dead, but so the father can begin to understand her life. The story is brief, clocking in at only 186 easy to read pages in trade paperback form. It has little of the narrative complexity that would later serve Block so well. And, you can see the ending coming well before it gets there. Nevertheless, it is still stylish noir with the right mixture of loniliness, cynicism and despair. And as with all Scudder novels, the actual violence is kept to a relative minimum. Overall, not Scudder's best but worth it for fans of the series.

Matt Scudder is still drinking in this yarn. He is an ex-cop and is not a licensed private investigator. He does favors for people. A father wants him to find out why his daughter died. He had not been in contact with her for three years. Scudder is no longer a police officer because he has lost faith. A ricochet bullet targeted at miscreants killed an innocent child.

Reviewing the records with the help of his police contacts, Matt concludes that it seems to be case of a murder suicide, the suicide taking place while the murderer was in custody. The persons involved in the crime were roommates. Richard Vanderpoel was a minister's son. He was employed as a clerk in the antiques business. Scudder sees the attorney who visited Richard at the Tombs. Richard's father is tall and rail thin.

Scudder arranges to see a former roommate of the victim. The victim, Wendy, is described as having a little girl quality. Both Richard and Wendy played out patterns in life representing relationships with and the loss of parents.

Scudder books depict the consequences of caring about people's fate too much. What results is a sense of exhaustion, a sense of loss. This volume follows the pattern.

This book only got three stars primarily because I had already read Wittgenstein's Mistress, and had seen the emotional response that Markson's style could produce, a response that he doesn't really bring off here. The style still has a certain hypnotic momemtum, and most literate readers will have no desire to put the book down (mostly for the high level of interest one has in the anecdotes), but it lacks the sense of character that the previous book had. Although he tries to create the same sense of loneliness that Kate had in W.M., the lack of a consistent narrative voice never allows us to get any sense of Protagonist or Reader as people, which is perhaps the point but doesn't really allow us to have any emotional ties with them - so the ending is much less affecting than it could have been.

And while W.M. dealt deftly with complicated philosophical issues, the issues Markson deals with here - mortality, bigotry, etc. - seemed to be handled a little heavy-handedly.

Sentences like:

He's completely alone here now.

And passages like:

Four of Freud's five sisters were incinerated by the Germans in 1944.

Four.

struck me a little overblown and pretentious, while the allusions and references to isolation in W.M. never did.

So: the book is certainly a worthwhile read, but I would read Wittgenstein's Mistress first. Probably the high point of experimental fiction in our time.

Markson discards the narrative form and focuses on what's interesting, the tidbits and anecdotes. The message of the novel is what he focuses on, the deaths, the misfortunes, the tabloid-like stories of the literary and philosophical giants. While throughly readable and engaging, I didn't find this work to be revealing or insightful in the way would stand up to some of their great ones. Perhaps I'm missing his allusions, but the insight of an anecdote is in its application, and in the stripped form of this novel many of those allusions read as if from a book of quotations.

"Reader's Block" somehow manages to pick up where "This Is Not a Novel" left off, even though the latter was written later. This is managed by TINaN being more polished, more reader-ready, more "practiced," and is thus a good introduction to the genre; but Reader's Block is more true to the genre by being less "produced" and therefore more "honest." And yet, if you go back even further to "Wittgenstein's Mistress," the genre is exploited in the form of actual fiction-- biographical fiction, to be sure, but fiction nevertheless-- so that if one needs fiction as an introduction to the genre, one has it available, and again, Reader's Block will pick up where W'sM leaves off.

I can't speak to still earlier works by Markson, but I can say the "adventurous reader," the literary equivalent of the day-walker who sets out in strange cities with nothing more than a bottle of water and power-bar, will enjoy the adventure of discovering this genre. "This Is Not a Novel" is the packaged tour; "Reader's Block" is the nitty gritty.

Oh, by the way, the genre is called "zuihitsu." It's Japanese.

This is the most self-indulgent piece of you-know-what I've ever read in my life. I got this book for a present, and I ended up turning to random pages and reading out loud random passages to friends so that we could laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. I'm a first-time mother, and I'm appalled that anyone would think that I could relate to this woman's awful narrative. It's like she just decided to publish her personal journal, thinking that people would enjoy reading it. And I guess some have, but it just wasn't for me!

"Guarding The Moon" did not surprise me in its beautiful lyrical content which is not unlike that of Block's previous novels. However, this book does take on a different note and feeling to it because it is non-ficiton. Block writes about her babies first year, including the joy of giving birth as well as the changes and adaptions that take place within herself, her family, and of course her baby. More then anything this book is the authors self-song of praise to the birth and life of her daughter. Having a first child makes a woman feel things and think things she hadn't imagined she'd feel or think and Block captures this rather accurately in a series of moments centering around the impact of her baby on her life. While Block explains the hardship that can come with having a new baby, she continuously emphasizes the joy and beauty of having a new spririt in her life.

If you're familiar with FLB's books and her writing style, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. I enjoyed her frank honesty about the way some new mothers can obsess about all the important and seemingly unimportant things about their babies. This book does a great job of expressing her growing into her own skin as a new mama.

but often referred to as middle block...dude

Unfortunately, you only find out this book does not cover the 351 Cleveland until you read it and the author clearly states "If your engine is a Cleveland, buy another book." That's not 'all' small block Ford engines (as the cover states) then, is it? Alright for everything else though.

To the reviewer who complained that this doesn't cover all smallblocks because it leaves out the 351C: The Cleveland is NOT a smallblock dude. It's a big block. The 351 Winsor is a small block.

If you buy a cook book that's about making soups, and the author says 'If you wanted to grill up a steak, this is not the book for you', then you can hardly get bent out of shape about it.

I love the burglar series. These books are well written, and most important, highly entertaining. Expect the unexpected as you drift through what seems like unimportant fluff, only to discover the subtle clues were laid down to allow our favorite burglar to solve yet another set of murders. It all starts with a dental instrument embedded in a woman's chest. The heat is on Bernie again, as New York's finest have him fingered as a suspect. Bernie finds unusual quantities of cash in the unlikeliest of places, as he pastes together the past of his dentist's ex-wife. Bernie pre-maturely pegs the murder on somebody who ends up dead --- in an awkward location. The grand finale is spectacular as always, with Bernie pulling out a fake witness to corroborate his suspicions and force a confession out of the guilty.

Lawrence Block is one of our most talented mystery authors. In the Bernie Rhodenbarr series he explores out an ordinary, but intelligent, "honest" person might go about pursuing a life of crime as a fastidious and talented burglar who isn't proud of what he does, doesn't like to hang out with criminals, and really gets a big thrill out of breaking and entering . . . and removing valuables. As you can see, there's a sitcom set-up to provide lots of humor. But the humor works well in part because Mr. Block is able to put the reader in the Bernie's shoes while he breaks, enters and steals . . . and evades the long arm of the law. To balance the "honest" burglar is an array of "dishonest" and equally easy-money loving cops. As a result, you're in a funny moral never-never land while your stomach tightens and your arm muscles twitch as tension builds. To make matters even more topsy-turvy, Bernie at some point in every story turns into an investigator who must figure out "who-dun-it" for some crime that he personally didn't do. It's almost like one of those "mystery at home" games where the victim comes back as the police investigator, playing two roles. Very nice!

So much for explaining the concept of the series. The Burglar in the Closet is the second book in the series. I strongly suggest that you begin the series by reading Burglars Can't Be Choosers. Each story in the series adds information and characters in a way that will reduce your pleasure of the others if read out of order. Although, I originally read them out of order and liked them well enough. I'm rereading them now in order, and like it much better this way. The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling comes next in the series.

As Stephen King likes to point out, a great way to start a book is to put a character in an unusual situation and then let things happen from there. The Burglar in the Closet certainly follows that route in a successful manner with what reads and feels like a very realistic (and hilarious to think about) burglary experience.

The complications soon start coming from all directions like sharpened spears, and Bernie's ducking before one of them hits him! Along the way you'll meet The World's Greatest Dentist and his hygienist, some remarkably vivid barflies, and visit again with the brilliant, but bent cop, Ray Kirschmann from Burglars Can't Be Choosers. Bernie gets accused of just about everything but what he actually did, and as before, straightens matters out through his own investigation.

I thought that the identity of the more serious criminal was pretty obvious, but the plot develops in such a witty, charming way that I didn't really mind. The plot is pretty complicated, and will keeep you on your toes . . . so pay attention!

This book is definitely a step up from Burglars Can't Be Choosers and really establishes the series as a solid one for fans of off-beat mysteries.

As I read this book, I was reminded of Murphy's Law (anything that can go wrong, will). Most of the unpleasant situations in our lives come about because we ignore Mr. Murphy. This book will certainly remind you to think through what could go wrong . . . before you go ahead.

Donald Mitchell
Co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise and The Ultimate Competitive Advantage

Lawrence Block is the mystery writer for the thinking person. His Bernie books are witty, humorous, well-written, and, most importantly, never take the reader for granted. These books are intelligent and are completely satisfying. This book, the second in the series, is a wonderful romp. I can't recommend this book enough!

I felt this book was worth the money. If you want to learn about SBC's and more of WHY to modify them (as opposed to how) then get this book.

I really think John Lingenfelter didn't get into enough detail on certain subjects such as heads, one of the most vital aspects of an engine. Also, there seemed to be a self promotion for his products in many articles. While this is understandable, I understood it was a good product from the first refrence to it.

The dyno charts in the back were nearly worthless. There were a total of around 7, and 2 were on an LT5. This is a very rare (and extremely expensive) engine with a DOHC configuration, so the info didn't have any application to standard SBCs.

Do not buy this book to build a powerful engine. Buy it to gain more understanding on what you want to do, but go with another for more specific refrences. I recommend it, just be prepaired to purchase additional books for more enlightenment.

THIS BOOK IS VERY GENERAL, POSSIBLY FOR THE NOVICE TO FORM A BASIS FOR BUILDING AN ENGINE. IT'S NOT FOR REFERENCE, NOT ENOUGH DETAILS.

In a day when we have many "how to" magazines and books, this book is a refreshing venture into the "how come". With that point in mind and despite other mixed reviews, I have to give John Lingenfelter's book on Modifying Small-Block Chevy Engines five out of five stars.

John leans more on the reason to build and modify various engine parts and touchs on the various parts and choices we as engine builders have. He thoroughly discusses which engine components should be given ample attention and which parts are just as well left alone. He also talks about how various parts work together to create a powerful unit.

In summary, if you are looking for a "hold my hand" walk through engine disassembly/assembly than you may be happier with author David Vizard or many other fine automotive writers. But, if you're looking for something different; maybe to gain the knowledge to begin to make your own engine assembly choices, than this is a fantastic read.