Goes

Jump through hoops to find this book for your children (and yourself)it is well worth the effort. The story line is wonderful and the pictures are beautifully executed. I remember the book from my childhood, and I believe that my daughter will grow up to remember it fondly as well. The publisher should reprint this book!!!!!!!!!

With nearly 2 million people in prisons today, we MUST educate ourselves on this "system" and we MUST help families stay together, and heal. Reading this book is a really good start.

The new Paddington Bear series is a nice introduction to The Bear. How nice that younger kids can now enjoy his antics! This particular book will, of course, be especially good to read to a child who is going into the hospital and would be a nice compliment to Curious George goes to the hospital. Or, if you simply enjoy P.B., read this book too!!

The appearance of this classic in solid hardcover reissue format will delight librarians whose collection holdings include aging titles: the bright cover enhances this new edition Paddington Goes To Town, and will greatly appeal to modern generations and will introduce them to the exploits of a small bear who journeys from 'darkest Peru' to join the Brown family in a series of zany events.

This book tells in great details of how kids really feel about going to bed! It's a great book and set to bring your kids up around. They'll beg you to read it to them even when their older!

read abov

This fine book, written by the wife of a submarine officer who served on S-39, provides a unique look at the lost world of late-1930's submarine duty in the US Navy's *Asiatic Fleet* as well as early war patrols. Tales of pre-War submarine training and Navy life and liberty in the Philippines and China set the backdrop for the story. Unlike some WWII submarine books this one includes lots of perspective from the sailors, and their wives and sweethearts, as well as the ship's officers.

In December 1941, S-39 and several other *pigboats* (a term for the already obsolete S boats used by sailors on the then-modern *fleet boats* which, themselves, came to be called pigboats by the nuclear-powered submarine generation) made the first war patrols. When it became clear the Japanese would conquer the Philippines S-39 withdrew, shooting, from the ruined Cavite Navy base near Manila: foraging for supplies among island villages, sinking two Japanese ships, suffering depth charge and bomb attacks, refitting in soon-to-be-conquered Dutch-dominated Indonesia and finally limping into Fremantle, Australia on one engine. By March 1942, S-39 had three war patrols under her belt.

A few months later, after extensive repairs and operating from Brisbane with a new skipper, S-39 makes a short breakdown plagued patrol and then, on her fifth patrol in August 1942, runs hopelessly aground off a remote island near New Guinea. Unable to re-float the stranded sub, S-39's crew scuttles the vessel and swims through dangerous stormy waves to a nearby reef to await rescue from an Australian destroyer. After some of the crew spends the night standing on a reef in water that rises above their waist during high tide, everyone makes it safely back to Australia. In an afterword we learn, sadly, that both of S-39's skippers and several other crew members we've come to know through this book perish in other submarines lost during the War.

There are useful sketch maps of each patrol. The best feature of the book may be the 57 black and white photos. Most of them are of the men whose words and actions are portrayed in the book. I found myself referring to them often as the story unfolded.

I recommend this book highly to everyone interested in naval and submarine history. It's a chance to look beyond the *big picture* of strategies and admirals to recall the importance of the day-to-day struggle to persevere and succeed even when circumstances or equipment are not ideal. Even though S-39 was not the ideal vessel to aggressively pursue the Imperial Japanese Navy in early 1942, her officers and crew lived by a code articulated, many years later, by none other than Miss Piggy: *You gotta go with whatcha got.*

I first became acquainted with this work through an NPR interview. The author, Marshall Goldman, was suddenly asked by the reviewer what he thought about top Mafia thug Mikhail
Khodorkovsky giving a million dollars to the Library of Congress (as a means of legitimizing himself). Naturally, as I work at the Library of Congress, I perked up, paid attention, and then
bought the book. Wow.

Khodorkovsky (currently in jail) started out as a good little communist, belonging to the Komsomol, and going to college. Johnny on the spot, he parlayed a small bank charter for
Menatep to become Russia's richest man. Unfortunately, Menatep was involved in the Bank of New York money laundering scheme, bilking the US out of billions. In 1994, the Federal Reserve ordered the CIA to investigate Russian banks, a study which concluded most Russian banks are Mafia controlled. Although the study is still classified, Menatep was the only bank publicly noted for being Mafia controlled (page148). Knodorkovsky started Yukos Oil, which was a swindle. Using this money, Khodorkovsky, with Henry Kissinger as a member of his board, gave one million dollars to the Library of Congress to start the Open Russia Foundation (page 149).

Another Library of Congress rent-a-thug was Vladimir Gusinsky. Gusinsky predated Khodorkovsky--probably because he's currently on the lam--and had helped fund the Librarian of Congress' Russia documentary film. Gusinsky had actually attended the University of Virginia to study financial management. He named his business empire MOST (a play on the word bridge)after the sign on ATM machines. Goldman also provides us with the "how" of how these two Mafia "oligarchs" could seem presentable given their backgrounds. Somebody got them the services of APCO, which is an offshoot of Arnold and Porter, a top DC law firm full of congressmen and other movers and shakers (page 129). The rest is history, as they say.

I also just have to mention one of the Russian jokes that Goldman repeats. Due to broad government theft this one circulated: A man parked under Yeltsin's office and walked away. A guard rushed up and said "You can't park under Yeltsin's office." "It's okay, the man replied, "I locked the car."

Goldman gives us the backgrounds and histories of all the top "oligarchs" and an explanation any layman can understand regarding just how Russia became so corrupted. This book, then, is not just for Library of Congress employees looking to see who the latest donors to our institution are.

Our Librarian of Congress, James Billington, is a former Sovietologist and "Russian scholar," so I suppose he knows what he is doing. Here is what Goldman thinks, though, "The more involved Russian businessmen become with the West, the more likely it is that they will come to adopt Western business practices, presumably good ones. But there is no guarantee. Given how deeply ingrained some of the less desirable practices are among Russian administrators (past and present) it is only to be expected that some of the more nefarious behaviour we have encountered inside Russia will also surface outside (page 118)."

I have read many books on the transfer of the USSR state economy to private hands and this is, by far, the best and clearest on the topic. If one has to read just one account, this is it.

Since this is one of the great economic changes of the 20th century, and robbery on a scale that has few if any precedents, Goldman's book is very valuable and important. He is candid about the monumental errors his colleagues made as advisers (ignoring those who dipped into the honey pot and made, by professorial standards, fortunes). He has interviewed countless people and made the arcane clear. Authoritative, well-written, an excellent piece of work.

Micheal and Norman's giant sock eating plants are
needed for Dr. Sparks' space expieriment because
some younger sock eating plants couldn't be trained
to pick up trash soon enough. Sending Stanly(one plant)
into space with astronots and Fluffy(the other plant)
away for ground testing causes a hillarious adventure
for everyone.

I liked this book, it is about how Michael, and Norman visit the movie scenes, and their plants get used for the movie. I liked this book, it is a page turner, in fact I could hardly put it down. I think that if you haver ever read that series, you should read this book, it is the best one yet.