Extension Books

The Real Deal! No "Steve Mcqueen" character, but everyone a true hero.The Great Escape

I love the movie the Great Escape and I loved reading the book it was based on. The movie did an excellant job of following the book but reading the book gave me so much more of an understanding of what these men went through and the courage they had. To truely understand the courage these men had and what they went through, you have to read the book.

If you want to know how to make something out of nothing, this is the book for you. I've been reading and re-reading this book since early childhood and that's how I learned to make a needed item out of just what was at hand. McGyver had NUTHIN' on these guys.

MRS. Dee Schauer
Texas

It's a shame the publisher decided to put a picture on the cover of Steve McQueen wrapped up in the barbed wire at the end of his big motorcycle escape attempt. Because, you see, that never happened in the TRUE story of the Great Escape contained in this book. The movie (while good) took serious dramatic license, while Brickhill's book presents the facts. And they are quite inspiring and thrilling enough without the addition of fictional elements such as McQueen's stunt riding.
I first read this book while in elementary school, and was hooked to the extent that I've read it many times since over the decades. A truly outstanding story.

This is the (true) story of the efforts of a multinational group of POWs to escape during WW2, and led to what is one of my favourite films.

I anticipated the book to be a bit of a let down after seeing the movie, but it really wasn't. They emphasize quite different aspects, and some parts of the movie were clearly made up with entertainment value in mind (people jumping motorcycles over fences for instance!). I can't blame the movie makers of course, because the compelling essence of this story is the daily slog of tunnelling set against the backdrop of the mind-numbing drudgery of incarceration. No movie could be long enough to get this point across, but the book allows one to build up a better picture of what captivity was like, particularly because it provides such incredible details. I was really struck by the ingenious ways the prisoners found to fake German uniforms and official passes, improvise tools, and build radios and other vital pieces of equipment. The book provides sufficient descriptions to allow you to get an impression of the main characters and camp layout, though I personally would have enjoyed a few photographs of the people involved (good and bad), though I realise these wouldn't have been easy to obtain.

The author has a relatively dry style typical of a historian rather than a dramatist, and at times relates key events remarkably passionately. The book ratchets up the tension without having to try too hard however, and I could sense the tension that existed whenever the guards entered the barracks to check for tunnels. The depression that accompanies every uncovered tunnel jumps out of the page, as does the resolve to keep trying to escape without ever accepting captivity.

I was also pleased that the author described the events some time after the final escape, so that I could see how thoroughly the Allied authorities pursued the main protagonists, and what was their evetual fate.

This book was a fine testament to the memory of the brave men who didn't wilt despite literally years of incarceration in conditions that can best be desribed as spartan. If they had all died without anyone knowing their story the world would be a poorer place.

The hero is a pragmatist in a Godless world. The protagonist, Frank Cassidy, had not had a day off in two years when he quits his job in New Jersey to go the the Upper Peninsula, Michigan for reason of a death in the family. He steals a car and later robs a man named Melvin. Frank's brother-cousin and his wife, Norman and Martha, dread the arrival of Frank and Honey and Robert Lee and Ernie, the children.

In the boarding house where they stay there is a hint of opulence. It is learned that the body of the deceased uncle, Ward, is being held by the authorities. Honey feels they should try to get jobs in the town. Frank works as a security guard and Honey in the business office of a college undergoing a transition from a community college to a four years residential college with a Great Books curriculum.

For Thanksgiving it is decided to eat at Cedar Lodge and stay there through the long weekend. Listed winter activities are ice skating and ice fishing. In a telephone call Frank learns that his cousin Norman is collapsing. Norman upended the sheriff's car when served with papers of foreclosure. Frank and his family go to Norman's place where it is discovered the dairy herd has been killed. In the end Frank uncovers and clarifies mysteries that have always surrounded his boyhood. The atmosphere created by the author matches the subject of the search for meaning by being indeterminate, foggy, bewildering. The children are presented in interesting realistic detail.

This is an unusual book, strange in so many ways I'm going to have trouble listing them all. I'll try, though. I will say that at some level I enjoyed this book, and if you can overcome the shortcomings that I'll list below, you may enjoy it more than I did.

For one thing, there's the issue of the author's name. This *isn't* the Michael Collins who was the first president of Ireland (of course not, he's been dead for 80 years) though the author was born over there. He's also not the astronaut who stayed on Apollo 11 while Armstrong and Aldrin wandered around on the moon. And he's also not Dennis Lynds, who has a series of detective novels featuring a one-armed private eye named Dan Fortune, and who writes novels under the pen name Michael Collins. This is the other other other Michael Collins. Very weird.

The plot of the book is pretty complex. All of the plot takes place in the late 1970s, a strange choice for the author. It works at some levels, though. Frank Cassidy is a small-time next-to-nothing, working at a burger joint, married to a woman who is at first a dispatcher for a trucking company. They have two kids, though the older one is from her previous marriage. Frank gets word that his uncle has died, and he decides to return to his hometown for the funeral. However his cousin and the cousin's wife are very angry at this.

This is where things begin to get strange. It turns out that Frank's wife, Honey, was married before, and her husband killed two people and is now on Death Row. She beats the son she had with the first husband. Frank, meanwhile, steals cars and money in order to finance their trip back home. As the novel progresses, there's not a single solitary character in the whole plot who's truly honest, good-hearted, and/or selfless. Everyone's out for themselves, dishonest, and nasty. It's sort of a cross between American Beauty and The Grapes of Wrath.

One point I think worth making is that the author isn't an American. You've got to wonder what these guys are thinking (I'm thinking of the guy who wrote American Beauty) when they move here in order to write stuff and tell us what jerks we are. I wonder if an American could move to Britain or Ireland and write a novel like this, and get it published, let alone receive awards. Needless to say, all the gushing blurbs on the back of the book are from British and Irish newspapers, which all insist (of course) that it reveals "America's long malaise".

The author *can* write, though. There's not that much of a plot, unfortunately. Instead, we get a bleak, desolate account of Middle America a quarter century ago. While the author isn't positive about anything, it's interesting to watch the characters wander through the plot. The mystery angle isn't (as is traditional) important to the book, and the solution, when revealed, seems rather forced and quick. Luckily, as I said, it's not that significant.

I enjoyed this book within these parameters. I might recommend it, but you've got to be aware of how annoying it can be at times.

This is where things get weird, however.

This book is a pleasure to read. The writing style is effortless - Mr Collins is a skillful and inventive writer.

The story follows a 1970s family who return to the Frank Cassidy's hometown for his dad's funeral. As the mystery around the death unfolds, other themes are also addressed. In a couple of generations Frank's family has moved from primary industry, mining and farming, into the service econony (flipping burgers). The novel shows the impact on families, on men and women and their ideas of their place in the world. Some people can survive in the modern world of corporate farming, of colleges which free people from their tie to the soil. It is not an easy journey but the ability of people to survive shines through, especially when the benefits of education are used to change for the better. In the background the impact of a war fought overseas is also in the air.

Ultimately, a novel about hope. Perhaps even an update of the American dream? Great book, deserves more recognition.

Frank Cassidy lives on the fringes of society in a succession of demeaning jobs, a wife with an ex-husband on death row in Georgia, an angst-riddled stepson waiting for his father to be executed and an innocent pre-schooler, obsessed with his toy dinosaurs. Frank's edge-of-desperation lifestyle can be traced back to his childhood, his father and mother killed in a fire that erupted on the family farm when Frank was five-years old. His memories of that time are dim, shaped by the overwhelming presence of his uncle, who raised him as one of his own, and the psychological evaluations the doctor hoped would unlock Frank's fragmented memory of the night of the conflagration.

As soon as he is old enough, Frank leaves the farm behind, along with all family connections, to make his way in a hostile world with no patience for an emotionally damaged survivor. His life since then has been a series of misdemeanors, an anti-social approach to the rest of mankind. Frank views his occasional petty crimes as the natural evolution of a careful society, like car theft, his deeds "preordained statistical probability", but refuses to believe that "stupidity and desperation equate to evil". When he reads of his uncle's murder, Frank gathers his family and heads for the past, a dark trek from New Jersey to the vast, empty cold of the far north in Michigan.

Along the way, Frank telephones his cousin at the farm, arguing about the purpose of the trip and the resolution of a shattered history. For Frank, this journey is like poking a stick at a bad tooth, as painful memories surge, taunting and confusing his every action, his haunted youth returning with savage intensity. He makes his way back to the kind of town nobody would willingly return to unless called by tragedy or loss. People here live in despair, inhabiting days frozen in minimal needs and obligations, waiting to thaw. At each phase of his odyssey, Frank is beset by images and memories, the flickering light of a television screen in a starless night, black and white reruns the backdrop for a tragedy buried in his subconscious that fills him with a vague sense of guilt, a mistrust of his own motivations.

Thirty years after the traumatic events that stole his childhood, Frank is called back into the chaos of his youth, the self-destruction that has defined every rebellious action since. Both distressed and comforted by a suffering family he can barely provide for, Frank plunges into what remains of his world, forced to redefine time and place, to make a stand in this frozen wilderness, drawing courage from his own need for resolution and the love of his dysfunctional family. He does so with consummate grace, a tragic character cart-wheeling through free-associative hell on a collision course with the truth. The prose is shadowed and disturbing, a painful view of the underbelly of American life, where the have-nots gather around a burning trash can in hopes of warmth in an indifferent landscape. Luan Gaines/2005.

~ Frank Cassidy learns in a newspaper of the death - possibly, murder - of his uncle, and goes back to North America to investigate any possibility of inheritance; to find out why his uncle died; and to sort out loose ends left in his head from a fire at his family farm in his childhood...

This book starts off quite promisingly. The writer evidently knows the mechanics of how to write well. But the book lacks sufficient plot after about the first hundred pages (of a 360-page book) to keep the reader very interested in continuing with it. The journey to the end of the book becomes boring, too unstimulating, too slow, too drawn out, with too much description and detail just for the sake of giving description and detail, too much describing of humdrum life, with the reader wondering if the book is going to go anywhere sufficiently interesting to be worth going on turning the pages. The characters in the book aren't made particularly interesting in themselves. The story ceases to be interesting. The reader is left in the dark for too long as to where the book is heading to, or why all the details are supposed to be interesting, or what the point of the book is supposed to be. Whilst what really happened many years before, in Frank's childhood, is revealed to us in the last fifteen pages of the book, by the time the reader gets there, he will probably have lost interest in the tale anyway.

A few specifics in the plot that didn't really seem to fit together well:
1. It seemed odd for Frank just to dump Juniper, the family pet, in someone else's car, and for that action then just to be accepted by the rest of the family.
2. It seemed odd for Frank to go back home with specific personal missions in his mind, but yet then never actually to get round to meeting up with Norman and Martha face to face for the whole time he was up there.
3. It seemed odd for Norman and Martha just to run away without saying more to anyone, after their herd was slaughtered.
4. Why Chester Green was suddenly being referred to as 'the Sleeper' didn't seem to be explained.
5. It seemed odd for Frank, not rich, not to want to salvage any possessions from either house before they were bulldozed.
6. It seemed odd and too convenient for Frank suddenly to be interrogating Baxter, his new co-worker, for information, which was forthcoming, as soon as he met him.
7. It seemed odd for Frank just to be allowed to be left alone with Chester Green in a hospital unsupervised, particularly in later visits after he had already been suspected of trying to harm or interfere with Chester Green earlier on.
8. Why Baxter suddenly ended up in the sanatorium following the window-smashing incident and ended up getting ECT treatment wasn't very clear.
9. Frank suddenly realising his mother had died in a fall many years ago, by listening to tapes, didn't really ring very true.
10. The detail at the end of the book (page 357), of Frank killing the paralysed 'Chester Green' in the sanatorium, seemed to be a detail borrowed straight out of 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest', where the huge red indian suffocates the comitose Jack Nicholson at the end of that film. That conclusion seems to be borne out by a reference to 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' in this book, just a page later (page 358).

All in all, this was not a very satisfying book, for a variety of reasons - mainly lack of interesting plot and lack of interesting characters.

Did not read like a Primer to me. Nowhere near as good as Dr Walsh's book.

Well organized and illustrated. Especially helpful for early stages of diagnosis and in meeting family member's concerns. I wish I'd had it sooner.

The book is really well written. It is chock full of information...figures, web links, and references. Great place to start to educate one's self if newly diagnosed.

This book is perhaps the best book of its genre in describing prostate cancer and the various forms of treatment for prostate cancer.

When a man is diagnosed with prostate cancer, he will be surprised to learn that there are a variety of treatment modalities. This book is excellent in that it lists all the available treatment modalities, lists the possible side-effects of each treatment, explains the diagnostic tests for prostate cancer, and writes extensively on which prostate cancers respond to which therapies the best.

The most confusing thing to a patient with prostate cancer is how to treat it. One needs to understand the type of cancer they have (the staging of the cancer tumor(s), how diagnostic tests are interpreted and what they mean, and then what treatment options are best for the specific cancer one has. This is where this book excels, as it thoroughly explains the entire process and informs the reader of all the various options that are available to treat prostate cancer.

Ultimately, knowledge is power in the issue of prostate cancer, so the informed patient is able to make the best decision to treat his cancer. This book will help you choose the best treatment. There are real and potentially serious life-altering side-effects to cancer therapy. One needs to know these adverse outcomes before making an informed decsion on treatment. I highly recommend this book as it does empower the man with prostate cancer to make these important decisons. After reading this book, you will have a sound knowledge of prostate cancer and the options for treatment. It is very reader-friendly and all medical terms and tests are explained in a manner that can be understood. It is required reading for anyone with prostate cancer.

Highly recommended.

Jim Koenig

Book Review
A Primer on Prostate Cancer: The Empowered Patient's Guide, 2nd Ed.
Stephen B. Strum, M.D. and Donna Pogliano
Hollywood, FL: Life Extension Foundation, 2005, 124 pp.
Ranked in the Top Ten of my Cancer Bibliography.
Ranked in the Top Five of my Prostate Cancer Bibliography.

I have surveyed or read so far over 100 cancer books in researching my own book. This ranked in the top 10% in both my categories primarily because of the excellence of its useful and professional content and presentation and the sophisticated level of the discussion. After my prostate cancer diagnosis, quickly learning I would not get enough time with my doctor, I dug deeply into many libraries and web sites. Public libraries are helpful, but severely incomplete and rarely up to date. With a background of two college degrees and Managing Director of a large research corporation, I knew how to do research and began to seek deeper information sources and understanding on cancer and medical websites. Here, also, there are problems: insufficient depth, too general, uncertain or dated reliability, suspect motives and dispersed value in millions of locations. Studies have shown that patients have a lot of trouble finding good material on the web, trying to find diamonds in the rubble. Then, I turned to Amazon and began to build my own library of the best available. This solved my problem.

Dr. Strum is a specialist in prostate cancer. This book is condensed and loaded on almost every page with color diagrams, charts, tables, photos, scans, Physician Notes and medical writing and details I would expect in a med school text. With my previous preparation, I was able to understand and apply almost all of it to my own situation, a great leap forward for a non-scientist. Not every prostate cancer patient will be ready for this, but buy it, refer to it as you do your homework elsewhere and your disease progresses, and it will soon become the core of your understanding and view of your future.

Along with the beautiful, colorful and clear presentations, I loved the several examples that were identical to my own journey, followed by the explanation of choices and exact treatment I have had: what a relief to study, decide and then get the same confirmation from my own doctors as we moved through several stages of diagnosis and treatment; what a thrill to study a photo of a problematic bone scan and compare it to my own favorable, cancer-free scan following treatment.

Your doctors are, of course, the final and up-to-date authority: be well-informed, so you can participate in the decision-making with the experts; but recognize that the busy medical community may not have the time or detailed knowledge of your situation to give it the attention you can. As you go, you will find a number of excellent books like this to guide you. It is important to have current information about the fast-moving science of medicine. That makes it a lot easier to get past the basics, ask good questions and accept or refine the doctor's judgment and recommendations. Seek out and devour books like this one, and you will be miles, perhaps even some time, ahead of most patients. With that confidence, your improved mental attitude will assist in your progress.
John Roberts (www.CanFighters.com)

have a problem with using words like "brilliant", "masterful" and "intelligent." But willing apply all words to this brilliant book, masterfully research and intelligently told.

The author gives a very full and complete treatise on Brown versus the Board of Education, but of greater interest, he writes of all the history that lead up to the ruling.

An exceptional book chronicling an extremely important issue in our country's history.

Long a mainstay of every 1L's pre-law school summer reading list, SIMPLE JUSTICE is more than a retelling of the tortured history of the landmark cases now known collectively as Brown v. Board of Ed. It is more than a retelling of the agonizing struggles of both gifted and ordinary people---black and white and every other---to reverse the four centuries of racial disparagement that make up the ugliest of all underpinnings of the American Experiment. What SIMPLE JUSTICE is, is an exhaustive sociological history of race relations in the United States to the 1950s.

It is a book every American should read. The endemic quality of racism in the American psyche is so overwhelming that it is easy to lose the human element. SIMPLE JUSTICE restores that element with sensitive, intelligent writing, exhaustive and documented research, and a tone which is pitch perfect, strident when need be, reasoned and thoughtful throughout. Ultimately optimistic, SIMPLE JUSTICE will renew your belief in the American system even while tempering it.

In it's retelling of nightmarish incident after nightmarish incident (the explosive and hideous lynchings are often easier to understand than the equally hideous and more subtle segregation and caricaturing that endured for, it seems, ever), SIMPLE JUSTICE shows us an America riven by its view of itself as a noble nation being eaten by the canker in its soul.

Although many Americans now consider race discrimination passe, it is not so hard to see the continuation of a pattern of violence toward blacks and the denigration of the black experience, even today. And yet, there is more, for not only are Black Americans denigrated, but White Americans as well, both suffering because this nation is only a fraction of what it might othewise be.

SIMPLE JUSTICE is a crucial Civics lesson. Read it to learn. Read it to know. Read it. Read it again.

This is certainly the best book ever written -- the best book that ever will be written -- about race, law and American society. It is a remarkably insightful history and one of the most stunning existing examples of narrative journalism. It is a masterpiece.

I'm a fan of nonfiction works and this easily moved to my top 5 favorite books. When I was growing up there were no courses on the contributions blacks made to America. There was no black history month. And I was cheated. I'm a 50+ white woman who lived through desegregation and had no clue that it was a struggle. I honestly don't remember a time when my elementary classes were all white but they must have been. I do remember clearly when my elementary class stopped being all white. That was when Richard Harris became my Batman buddy. On the aftenoons following the show we would go to the neighborhood soda shop and have a coke and discuss all the action of the previous evening's show and check for new Batman bubble gum cards with the intensity that only 5th graders can bring to such an important endeavor. It felt normal to chat Batman with Richard; and I'm so sorry for all the children that had such a dumb practice as segregation rob them of those moments.

This book read like a thiriller for me. Couldn't put it down. Underlined and highlighted parts. Read other sections out loud to my husband and to some friends at work. This is American history. Everyone should have the opportunity to learn about the value of education, the value of varied experiences and the perseverance to acquire the rights that should never have been denied to the black people. It's made me hungry to know more and I'll be keeping my eye out for other works by Kluger. Excellent author.

I just finished this book, A Simple Justice, and it is fantastic. It's the story of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, which is the landmark Supreme Court case that desegregated compulsory public schools in America. But it's so much more than that. After reading this book, I felt almost ashamed of my previous ignorance to the struggles and condition of black america at the hands of almost everyone else in the country. It is comprehensive in its scope and perspicacious in its analysis, sparing no feelings on either (or rather, any) side. I believe myself to be, for the most part, a judicious man when it comes to philosophical or sociological observations, but Kluger was able to open my eyes to angles I had previously missed on issues I thought I had resolved long ago. So if you're not too scared of big books, this one's worth the time.

It's worth picking up a copy, alot of information in there. Good thick book. Glad i bought it.

This book must have taken a life time of research and work. It is the most comprehensive and complete work on the Maya I have read. I was particulary interested in the Maya Calendar history and their methods of working the calendar.

This is by far the most comprehensive book about the ancient Maya. There are several excellent shorter ones; this is the go-to book for thorough reference. It has become almost as "classic" as Maya civilization. Sharer reminisces about being "hooked on" Maya studies by the third edition (by Morley and Brainerd, 1956); so was I, back when it was newly minted. How much has changed since. Scholars can now read Maya. We now can match written history, sculptured portrayals, and archaeological findings to identify the actual skeletons of some of the greatest and most famous Maya kings, such as Yax K'uk' Mo' of Palenque. We have entire dynastic lists covering centuries, for many of the major cities. We can use bone chemistry to find out what the Maya ate. All of this was almost beyond the wildest dreams of the 1950s.
The Maya turn out to have been as brilliant, original and creative as anyone ever thought, a truly homemade civilization, one of the few in a tropical forest environment. They are said to have "collapsed" due to ecological maladjustment, but this book notes that modern research shows the civilization lasted well over 1,000 years before the "collapse" around 900 AD, and it was a fairly local phenomenon. This local collapse was due to drought, warfare, and some ecological overshoot--too many people doing too much (including burning too many trees to make lime for stucco and cement). The Maya kept on. They took on the Spanish and often won. The last independent state held out till 1697, and Maya continued holding out in remote backlands; in 1846 the Mexican Maya rebelled again, and created an independent state, finally reconquered after 1900 and turned into the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. As for what has happened since, suffice it to say that 3 days ago I saw an election sign painted in huge letters on a wall in central Quintana Roo: "PRESERVE YOUR PRIDE IN BEING MAYA!"
There are very few errors in this book, but some need correcting in the 7th edition. Most are in the very early sections, and are often left over from previous editions. Page 5, 16th-century Europeans are said to be "secure in the knowledge that they alone represented civilized life...." No, they revered China, and knew plenty about India, Persia and Arabia. P. 9, coffee is said to have come "soon" with the Europeans; not till the 19th century, at least as a major crop. 23, Nahuatl loanwords reflecting rise of central Mexico in the Postclassic: Well, a lot of those Nahuatl loanwords came with the Spanish (who had Nahuatl soldiers with them). Page 33, caiman: The book confuses the animal called "caiman" in English, an alligator-like creature not found within hundreds of miles of Mayaland, with the crocodile, which is called "caiman" in Mexican Spanish; also, pythons are claimed as native to Mayaland! The nearest they get is Africa; evidently "boa constrictors" are meant. Then nothing till page 640, where a typo (apparently two decimal places missed) has given us a preposterous yield figure for beans (in the table at the top of the page). The yields of maize are also pretty high, though not ridiculous. There are a few other errors in the book, but nothing of consequence that I can pick up.
The book uses the "new" transcription system for Maya languages, but sometimes slips and uses the "old" system, and sometimes mixes them up in the same word (e.g. "dz'onot" on p. 52). One related annoyance--not Sharer's fault; alas, it is becoming standard--is respelling "Yucatec" in the new transcription system. "Yucatec" is a SPANISH word, with no excuse in Maya, and should not be respelled. (For the record, the Spanish coined "Yucatec" from a misunderstood Maya phrase and a Nahuatl ending. They also popularized some Nahuatl ethnic names for Maya peoples. These names, like Huastec and Aguacatec, should be spelled in whatever system in now standard for Nahuatl--not in a Maya system. Better yet, they should be replaced with the actual Mayan names, like Teenek for Huastec.)
The one place I would respectfully disagree with this book is on ancient Maya population. Sharer has "tens of millions" of Maya in the 700s AD and around then. On the basis of some years of field experience with (mostly modern) Maya agriculture, I don't think this is possible. Granted that the old myth of purely-swidden agriculture is long dead, "tens of millions" would require agricultural intensity of a sort found, in preindustrial times, only in the wet-rice lands of east and southeast Asia. Mayaland is small, and only some of it is at all fertile. Sharer's evidence is a couple of surveys showing high densities of settlement in particularly favored areas; not only are they atypical, there is no guarantee the houses discovered were all occupied at once. I would guess the peak total for Mayaland was between 5 and 10 million; at least, the agriculture I know would support that many, if it had some additional intensification of the sort well documented. Beyond that, all is speculative.
One more thought. The Maya were supposed to be "peaceful" back in my student days. Then, with reading the Classic Period texts, scholars found they were pretty warlike. This led to some exaggeration the other way. Fortunately, Sharer is far too careful and comprehensive a scholar to fall for either the "peaceful" or the "warlike" view. The "warlike" view was justified by the big monuments in the Maya city squares. These commemorated wars and victories, just as do those in town squares in the midwestern US. Alas, we lack the ordinary writings--the equivalent of midwestern newspapers, with their record of marriages, births, corn and hog prices, store openings, and the like. Surely the Maya had their equivalents. What interests me here is the incredibly long life spans of Maya kings. Many lived, and even reigned, for 50, 60, even 70 years. Compare that with the Roman or Chinese emperors or the kings of France. Clearly, Mayaland in its glory days was a pretty peaceful, healthy place--though, indeed, not the paradise dreamed by romantic archaeologists of the early 20th century!
The ancient Maya are still a pretty mysterious lot in many ways, and there is a huge amount to learn. We had better do it soon. Sharer provides a long, excellent, very disturbing account of the looting that has destroyed much of the Maya heritage and will destroy all of it (at least in Guatemala) if a massive effort isn't mounted soon.
On the other hand, nothing is more heartening than the number of Maya who are becoming archaeologists and ethnographers, and studying their own past. More power to them.

Had this book been less than half its size readers would end up learning much more about the Maya from it. Unfortunately, there's much too much that belongs in an Archeology 101 class here and by the time you get to some discussion of the Maya, you're half asleep. Those of us who are not reading archeology for the first time will wish the author had just kept his discussion to the Maya, as the title suggests he will, and assumed we understood the basics.

Personally, I'm still looking for a book on the Maya so that as I travel from site to site in Quintanaroo, Yucatan, Guatemala and Honduras, I will have a basic understanding of the site I'm driving to. I just booked a trip that will book me in the area of Chac Mool soon. I'll see what I can find.

By far the most thorough book on the Ancient Maya I have ever seen. It covers all the history and gives a great deal of arceological information. There is also a lot of information on the religious, social, and economic life of the Maya. The book covers in great deal the history of each Mayan polity and it is very well organized. If there is anything you want to know about the Maya it will be in this book.

highly recommend this book. very colorful, has good rhyme. there is so much going on in each picture, really keeps the child engaged. the best one of the bear book series.

This is a lovely book, fantastic illustrations and a wonderful theme throughout. "Where are you going bear, please wait for me". Follow the bear and the boy through different places real and imagined. Suitable for 12 months - 3 year olds.

After reading it a few times to my son, I was surprised to hear him reciting the rhyme text back to me. We enjoy reading it together. The text is very simple but is perfect for a toddler. We learn names of different fruits, vegetables, and animals, as well as different ways of traveling. As all the Barefoot books he has, he loves it.

this book has vivid color. when you read to your kid. they love it too.

The illustrations are absolutely fantastic! they are beyond vivid its truly a feast for the eyes!
The story is simple and cause the illustrations are so perfectly done for a toddler it's very self-explanatory, Bear is traveling through the entire story on different means of transportation he goes to an island on a boat, to the market on bike, to a grand ball in a carriage and through the story the little boy is trying to keep up with bear but he just keeps missing "the boat" so to say. It's a very fun rhyming journey to introduce to little ones! This is our favorite of Stella Blackstone's Bear series its by far her best book!

"I'm going to do whatever I can to see justice is done in the courtroom. If the town burns down because of it, so be it." Those words were spoken by Roy Black, the author, who shares with readers his passion for defending the criminally accused. In this book, he tells the story of four trials. In one, he represented Luis Alvarez, a young cop who shot a black man which caused a large riot in Miami. Another case involved a bartender who faced death for murdering his girlfriend. In that case, Black dissects the botched police investigation and shows how to take apart a prosecution's case built on circumstantial evidence.

Throughout the book, there are many insightful practice tips for defense attorneys. For example, Black instructs for cross-examination that "although jurors needed to understand that the detectives had failed to do many things, I didn't wnat to transmit the impression that 'my client's guilty, but the cops blew the investigation and so they didn't prove it."

All four cases in the book read like great mysteries. Whether you are a defense attorney or not, you are sure to thoroughly enjoy this book.

Roy Black once said, "The kind of cases I handle are the ones people can't afford to lose." On the eve of yet another notorious public figure facing penitentiary chances, Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis made the call, "Get me Roy Black." And why not? Mr. Black has attained legendary status as one of the top legal minds in the country. From his days battling in the PD's office in Miami to his rise as Miami's `super lawyer' , Black's deft handling of the media makes for a formidable one-two punch when you combine his PR skills with his presence in the courtroom. Francis knows he's in for the fight of his life. The government has tattooed crosshairs on his back for the last ten years, and he knows he's facing the end of his rope. Who wouldn't hire Black?

This book encapsulates all that is Roy Black. Delivering gut-wrenching stories of trench warfare, he said, "My cases are World War III to me. I don't take prisoners when I go to trial." Attorneys make their living through words. And this book is a testament to that. Written for the everyday man, the style of writing is brief, easy to read, and compelling. It's as if Black is masterfully telling his stories to a jury. And once again, he wins them over. Highly recommended.

Do you sometimes wonder why anyone could possibly want to defend the scum, the losers, the obviusly-guilty-because-the newspapers-said-so? Well, if you think that way you will find a very good answer in this book. Roy Black describes four different cases which seemed impossible to defend, yet he did and did it well. He lets you in on what it's like to be on the defense side of the aisle. His writing style is smooth and flowing and each of the cases was so interesting I found it hard to put the book down. For me this was one of those books you can't help but read fast because it's fascinating, yet want to read slow so it lasts longer. For any True Crime genre fan, this is a MUST read.

I really enjoyed "Black's Law." He tells four different seemingly story-like narratives about four different cases. He discusses in detail every aspect of trying a case from research to voire dire. If you are interested in either legal strategy or just in a good story, you should read this book.

A great book. Written by a expert in communication. Each case brought you into the defense, you believe in the actions brought forward to give not only a legal defense by our constitution but to see a inocent person never is incarcerated,if that ever comes to pass. I would hope Mr. Black will write more, he is able to take a very complicated subject and break it down to a laymans understanding.

The descriptions of the reviewers: Slavisa Nesic and Larry Wagner "Athlete, Analyst, Coach, Dad" in this list do an excellent review and detailed description of the book. I just wanted to add my voice, as a woman, that I found his book incredibly useful too.

As is stated, the emphasis of El Howie's book is on weight-lifting and power-lifting (which focuses more on strength) as compared with Bodybuilding (to get those shapely muscles that make our stomach flat and the rest of us curvaceous.) Women in general want to look great in a bikini and the Bodybuilding orientation is the way to go.

But he gives enough coverage to Body-building and nevertheless, he is meticulous about form.

The other two books I have liked in conjunction with this is Delavier's Strength Anatomy and his Women's Strength Training Anatomy (I recommend getting both whether you are male or female.) Those books give you very clear basics for form, lots of detailed diagrams and so forth. El Howie's book is extremely comprehensive.

There are various debates as to how often to work out, whether you should focus on just parts of the body each day at a time or workout the whole body in each session. There are also differences of opinion as to best plan your meals, whether and when you should do cardio in conjunction with the weight-lifting. It would be useful, if you are a first-timer, to go for Body for Life or some other program that involves lifting weights. At bottom, in my experience, how one comes out on the various debates invariable is what works best for them, whether physiologically, psychologically or schedule wise.

I just want to say to any woman reading this, if you don't already know, you will never get back or achieve that girlish figure if you don't lift weights and lift heavy weights. And you can no matter what you age.

Though I do not want to provide a link on an Amazon post, if you google John Stone 42 the first link that comes up should be "Fit Women over 42- 89 on parade." If you go to that link you will find tons of stories with pictures of women going through fantastic transformations starting at age 50, 60 and older. Don't ever believe you are "too old" or "too out of shape" to achieve this.

And El-Howie's book is a great reference for getting form down correctly to get the best results and not injure yourself.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2YKHSV7PL40Y9 Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength Training

Learn the right forms for power lifting and weightlifting so you don't injure yourself when lifting. Even a 75-year-old woman will find this reference guide a useful fitness tool.

What I liked: coverage of the different types of weight training (power lifting, body building, etc.), great description of body shortcomings (too stiff, weak arms, shoulders) and possible remedies, form for different lifts, interesting Egyptian history and training methods over time (40+ yrs), Q&A section

What I didn't like: 1st edition binding unraveling, small print, overwhelming size of information, sometimes dry writing style

Who should buy this? those looking beyond the basics and wanting something more integrative & descriptive approach - whole body lifting

Although I am currently not in the best of shape, at one time I worked as a personal trainer and by education I was trained as a research scientist. I have graduate education in both physiology and biochemistry and have worked with some high end athletes including one Olympic level powerlifter. Currently, I am looking to use strength training again myself because I was sidelined for a number of years by a back and neck injury, this is the context for my interview.

The first thing I would like to say is that I own and have bought many books on strength training and most of them are not even in the same category as this book. Of the books that are out there, most of them say the same thing in different ways, make unsubstantiated claims or set unrealistic expectations. In short, this book is a welcome exception. It is well-organized, detailed, thorough, well-written and dense with valuable material.

A lot of the focus here is on training for powerlifting. However, it's also a great strength training text with lots of references. The scope of the book is ambitious and covers the proper way to perform important exercises, information about periodization, explanations of how different types of programs affect the body, the importance of coordination, etc.

In addition, this title has many useful diagrams, training ideas and references to actual studies. The information in it is very credible and much more than one person's opinion. I was also extremely impressed with the detailed descriptions of how each exercise works, the anatomy involved and the sections on physiology.

One might assume that a book like this would read like a text book in accounting or calculus (not that there is anything wrong with either of these subjects).... However, it sometimes difficult to be technically precise and at the same time engaging to the reader. On this account, Dr. El-Hewie has certainly succeeded.

Although this book is quite expensive, it covers a TREMENDOUS amount of ground in a reasonable space. It was clearly a labor of love and it is well worth every cent. Rather than wasting money on more of the same, I recommend getting a few good books. This is one I would NOT like to be without.

Another book that I saw recently for hard-gainers had a lot of good content in terms of building mass. I think it fell down a bit in the nutrition/supplement area, but it is much less expensive than this and covers a subset of this material that is most important to training properly for mass. This book is called From Scrawny to Brawny. There are a FEW other books I saw that I thought were quite good and I will be reviewing them in the near future. I will most likely be reviewing the ones I thought were quite bad as well.

Lastly, this book covers lots of nuances like nervous system adaptation, relationships between strength, mass and power. The importance of coordination and how to plan a path forward depending upon your goals. It's really one stop shopping for an athletic approach to strength training vs. bodybuilding. Bodybuilders will find a lot of great material here, but this is NOT the emphasis of this particular book.

I seldom find a book that they come a lot of number. the design is cute too.

The author/illustrator is very talented. The pictures capture my 16-month-old's attention. He loves to look for the hidden cat on the pages and most often grabs this book first at storytime. Colorful, unique. Recommend this highly for kids >1.

We first checked this book out at the library. My daughter loved it so much that I went and bought the board book version. The artwork is incredible, and my daughter, who is 2, loves finding the cat on each page. She also loves all the animals, and, of course, the counting and number concepts in the book are an added bonus.

My son loved this book as a toddler. Unlike my daughter, he had a shorter attention span when we sat down for story time. I would keep his interest in other books by having him hunt for objects in the pictures. This was a favorite.
He loved searching for the cat in this book. "There he is!" he would shout and point. Most board books do not count as high as twenty so this left us with plenty of opportunities to search for the cat. The board book format makes for easy holding and durability that stands up to frequent reading.
As much as you love that your child is enjoying books, it can somethimes be hard with this age group for the parent to enjoy mulitiple visitations to the same book with the same excitement as the child.
I always ejoyed this one. The aplliqued felt illustrations are so attractive. The colors are beautiful. The pictures give you much to look at without being too cluttered for the age group for which it is intended.
Quite lovely. I give starter baby board book collections as shower gifts and this is one I always include.

My 2-year-old son has loved this book since he got it more than a year ago, and I love it too. The pictures are beautiful and fun to look at on their own, but now we like to count the animals on each page. Looking for the cat hiding on each page is the best part of all.

My son is 19 months old and really enjoys pointing to the different objects on each page. It a great book to learn how to recognize objects in a picture.

These are great books. I plan on keeping all of them even though my son is 6 years old. He still likes to read them. Keep them for your grandkids!

This is a great book for a pre-reader, up to age 4 or so. It teaches rhymes, shapes, colors and numbers, all in a sturdy board book illustrated with funny colorful pictures. Very cute!

My son has loved this book from the start. I thought he was just fascinated by the vibrant colors and pictures, but evidently it is also a valuable learning tool. He knew all the shapes by 12 months. He is 18 months now, and we still read this book, making up stories about the pictures. He still likes being 'tested' on the shapes at the end, though of course he knows it by heart by now.

I have this book as a board book, which is good because it's appropriate as a "baby's first" type of book. I just love it and my one year old just loves the bright pictures. When I put it down to get another one, he points to it again. The rhyming text is wonderful and the pictures are really cool and artsy and bright. My 3-year old also likes it because she understands how to find and count the shapes. I really recommend this one - perfect for a baby gift or first birthday!