Holder

History records major events that often changed or will change human events. History is packed with stories about famous people and places that every child knows about, from Washington to Lincoln to Kennedy. But what about those people in history that make a difference and never get noticed?

Written by his daughter, what we find in this book is more than history its living history. Smith captures the reader with insight only a person this close to the subject can bring to life. Just the lessons about the Tuskegee Airmen is reason enough to read this book.

Talk a walk through the 200-page life history of one of the greatest men in aviation history. Honored by a number of people, Charles McGee is a true national hero for all ages and all people. The sad part of the whole story is how the history books missed the group of men who changed aviation history.

In a day when it is a sad reality that most American history books fail to portray any African American as a hero in the history books, it is great to know that people like Charlene McGee Smith can help us to remember that history is colorblind. Excellent reading for everyone!

This is a wonderful story that chronicles the life of Col. Charles McGee who holds the record for the highest three-war total of fighter combat missions in US Air Force history. It is told through the eyes of his daughter who captures both the military experience as well as the human side of this story. We learn of the perseverance of this Tuskegee Airman who was able to overcome racist experiences and become an American hero. Part of the delight of this book is the personal rememberances by family and friends. Col. McGee flew combat missions and navigated racist attitudes and biases throughout his life. This account is about more than a distinguished military career,it is about family and the significant influence he had on his eldest daughter. We learn about his bravery but more importantly lessons about the value of family, character, and education shape a powerful message for all of us.

As the author, I found it to be a blessing not only to write this book but also to share it with others. And I continue to read it, as if it were written by another since the Jewish wisdom that it contains continues to inspire me.

If you are like me and wait until the last minute to study for the test, then this book is for you. I waited until about 5 days before the AP United States history test and to begin studying because prior to that I had to take the SATs. This book summarizes most topics in US History and talks about everything including famous court cases such as Plessy vs. Ferguson and specific reform movements such as populism. I found this book better than REA's because it gave useful information that would be tested on where the REA US History book goes into far more detail. If you have less than a week before the test, worship this book and you can probably get a 4 or at least a 3. This is one book I could not do without.

This superb book will interest the collector and historians alike. It is a great tribute to Lillian Baker, the queen of hatpin collectors. She passes on her tremendous knowledge and experience with the aid of a well catalogued album. This shows colour plates of many hatpins indexed by the different types of materials used. Gold, silver, brass, glass, porcelain, ivory and many other hatpins adorned with diamonds, pearls, amethysts, etc show what a diversity of collections are possible. They are catalogued by type, manufacturer, style or period over the past 150 years or so. A historical perspective on their development shows how they were made and the many types of legitimate fixings. Examples of fake hatpins are also shown. There is also a similar catalogue of a vast range of hatpin holders and vanity sets also in colour. The book is worth the money for the pictures alone and is what you would expect of the author who managed to persuade friends with rare and expensive or unusual hatpins and holders to allow them to be catalogued. There is even an explanation of the origins of pinmoney and the need for hatpin to be one word not two. The only disappointment is the lack of any indicator of values, as this was also the authors area of expertise. This book is unlikely to be repeated so buy it now - it will be a collectors piece soon.

Arthur G. Holder has provided a great service to English speakers everywhere in his edition of Bede: On the Tabernacle. This is a translation of an amazing text from the Venerable Bede, often known as the "Father of English History".

The work by Bede is a commentary on the major Old Testament texts which established the tabernacle. If you are a student of scripture, or have an interest in the medieval mind I can't see why you wouldn't buy this book.

Bede finds layers and depths of spiritual meaning in every pole hook, and ring of the sacred house of worship. In addition to putting his interpretive approach to work, he enlightens us with several passages directly explaining his methods of handling the sacred scriptures. If modern exegetes are committed to word studies, Bede was committed to "detail studies," taking the grammatical meaning of the words in most cases for granted and spending his effort on the spiritual implications.

Even if you don't finally succumb to the seductive clarity of Bede's allegorizing, you will have basked in the pattern revealed to Moses on the mount as well as the delightful power of one of the most peaceable, devout, and honorable of minds ever to record its thoughts. Bede managed to pack nearly 500 scriptural quotes and allusions into 150 pages of text. As they say nowadays. "The man knew his Bible."

Go get it. And again thanks to Dr. Holder.

While we have all expected Buffy the Vampire Slayer to trot out a special Halloween episode each season like Roseanne used to do, it has been pretty much an every other year proposition ("Halloween" from Season 2 and "Fear Itself" from Season 4). Fortunately, to help fill in the gap while we see what is in store for Season 6 we have Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder's first Buffy novel, "Halloween Rain." By now this pair has clearly established themselves as far and away the best writers working on the Buffy novels, with The Gatekeeper Trilogy being their masterpiece. Their respect for and understanding of the Buffy mythos is second to none. After all, they were the two main compilers of "The Watcher's Guide" and its follow-up works. So, what we have here is a well-written Buffy novel that will suffice as the Halloween episode from the first season.

Anyhow, it seems that there is a legend in Sunnydale about a scarecrow that comes alive when saturated with Halloween rain and slaughters everyone in sight. Of course Giles uncovers the logical explanation for such things. This is really the demon Samhain (Remember the name from the movie "Halloween"? We are talking classic homage here, boys and girls), and just to make things even more fun the demon has dealt with a Slayer in the past. Add to this the fact that it is Halloween and it is Sunnydale, which means mondo party time for all the vampires and zombies this side of the Hellmouth. Golden and Holder have Buffy speak down solid, but the key to the novel is coming up with a fairly sophisticated villain for the Slayer to take down. Make it easy on yourself and just download every Buffy book this pair writes.

It has been a couple of years since it was written but "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" is still far and away the best of the Buffy books. It is not surprising that Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder are the best writers working on these books since they are also the main authors of the Watcher Guides and certainly have the requisite knowledge of the characters and the Buffy mythos. In retrospect I ended up feeling about these three books pretty much the way I did about the original Star Wars trilogy where the second one is the best and the finale has a bit of trouble living up to your expectations because what has gone before has been so great. However, put them together and they simply set the bar higher for everyone who comes in their wake.

Ironically, in this particular book Buffy has less to do that most of the other characters. It was certainly nice to see that Xander have a bright shinning moment as the substitute Gatekeeper. His character has been the comic relief for the Scooby Gang for so long that you forget he brought Buffy back from the dead at the end of season one. They also do a nice job of getting to what Cordelia is thinking behind her tactless remarks, but Oz is back to quipping a bit too much as he was in Book One and Willow is much more of a successful little spellcaster than she has yet to be in the television episodes. Still, I feel they are on the right track with most of these character developments. However, the character who really shines in this volume is Joyce Summers, dealing with being the mother of the Slayer as best she can.

After including Spike and Drusilla in the previous volume as a minor plot complication (I really was expecting more from them), the authors have Ethan Rayne makes a much more substantive guest appearance in this concluding volume, although he is really nothing more than a plot contrivance. The truly tragic figure that emerges from this trilogy is Jacques Regnier, the young boy who has to become the Gatekeeper following the death of his father. His fate is different from that of Buffy as the Slayer, but he is also a Chosen One and there is a certain pathos to his having too grow up too quickly. The creation of the Gatekeeper and the Gatehouse are the best ideas I have come across in the Buffy books so far, and are worthy of being included in the mythos of the television series. I was surprised to see that the historical flashbacks on the story of Giacomo Fulcanelli, Il Maestro, were substantially less than in the previous volumes, although his back story is concluded.

The resolution to the Gatekeeper storyline in "Sons of Entropy" works pretty well, more so with the Gatekeeper's part of the battle than with Buffy's final battle with the demon Belphegor. I have never really liked the idea that the Achilles heel of the bad guys is that they all lie to their stupid minions who tend to betray them at the right moment. I would much rather see the good guys rise to the occasion and do so without the old chestnut of figuring out the meaning of the key clue at the last moment. The idea of the Gatekeeper and the Gatehouse merging in a new way was a very credible solution. Again, I know that my expectations were so high that Joss Whedon himself would have problems coming up with a conclusion that would truly top the marvelous set up. If you have read and enjoyed any of the original Buffy novels, you have to treat yourself by downloading the Gatekeeper Trilogy.

These two books are needed to make the true joy of watching Buffy come out! These book explane about monsters and vampires, have detailed summarys about each episode, behind the sceens looks at episodes and actors, pictures, and so much more! The first is better than the second because it talks about couples and monsters and is just better in general but these are still the greatest thing for a Buffy fan to get! You will not regreat buying this!!! True, I have not seen the two together in a package like this, but these books still ROCK MY SOCKS!!! ^-^

"The Gatekeeper Trilogy" does one thing that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series has been unable to do, namely get the Slayer and the Scooby Gang to hit the road. The Hellmouth is a convenient excuse for all sorts of vampires, demons and big evils to come visit Buffy and the gang in Sunnydale, but a road trip has long been in order. Unbound by considerations of stage space and shooting budgets, "Out of the Madhouse" manages to get the Slayer and most of her cohorts to Boston, with the promise of even bigger trips down the road.

The plot has to do with the Sons of Entropy trying to unleash chaos on the world at the behest of Il Maestro, who works mainly behind the scenes in Book One. Suddenly all sorts of wicked things come to Sunnydale and it turns out that there have been released from the Gatehouse where the Gatekeeper is dying, leading up to an initial showdown in Boston. The other recurring concern throughout the book is more personal, dealing with what Buffy, Xander, Willow and the gang are going to do when they get finally graduate high school, so there is a concern for the entropy of the group along with the potential destruction of all human life on the planet. Implicit in their concerns is the unspoken knowledge that Buffy is fated to die young as a slayer and their realization that whatever hopes and aspirations they might have seem somewhat secondary to saving the world from big evil.

Authors Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder are perfectly suited to the task of constructing a literary epic for Buffy. Not only because they are far and away the best writers working on the Buffy books but also because they have researched the characters and the attendant mythos of the series, having written/edited the Watcher's Guides and Monster reference books for the show. They have come up with a plot line well suited to a three volume tale and you only have to read a couple of chapters to acknowledge this book is so far above the vast majority of the Buffy books. Furthermore, they get beyond the surface level with all of the characters, although admittedly they are guilty of putting too many quips into dialogue. Oz sure talks a lot more than he ever did on the television series, but Golden and Holder do have an especially nice feel for the emotional attachments of these characters to one another. They get the important stuff right. It has been several years since "The Gatekeeper Trilogy" first came out and you still will not find a better Buffy the Vampire Slayer story to download. "Out of the Madhouse" is where the fun begins.

Fascinating Trivia Note: In flashbacks early on in this novel we meet Catherine de' Medici, wife of Prince Henri the Dauphin of France in the year 1539. You might not have heard of her, but you might recognize the name of her husband, seeing as how he is the prince in the movie "Ever After" from a few years back. However, neither Henri, King Francis, Leonardo di Vinci, or Danielle appear in the flashbacks. Ever notice how history is never like the fairy tales?

"The Ghost Roads," the second book in The Gatekeeper Trilogy, is even better than the first volume in this epic Buffy the Vampire Slayer story. The Ghost Roads of the title are a network of inter-dimensional shortcuts that allow Buffy, Angel and Oz to travel quickly to Europe to search for the son of the dying Gatekeeper. What they do not know is that Spike and Drusilla have the boy and are looking to make a deal with the Sons of Entropy. Meanwhile, back in Sunnydale, the Flying Dutchman has appeared off shore causing problems for Giles and the rest of the Scooby Gang. Even worse, the Sons of Entropy have kidnapped Joyce Summers in an effort to force the Slayer to return so Buffy can be sacrificed by Il Maestro to the greater glory of his demon overlord and the end of the world as we know it.

Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder really hit their stride in this original novel. The tendency to work too many quips and one-liners in the first volume, a perpetual problem in these Buffy novels, is reduced to the perfect level. This is due in large part to the fact that the writers have clearly upped the ante on the serious side of the scale. What makes "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" one of the best shows on television is that in addition to the clever quips and innovative fight sequences there is drama acted out on an operatic level (the highpoint of which was Buffy having to slay Angel). Golden and Holder are clearly working on that higher level in this book: Giles has to leave behind students to die during an escape, Angel tortures a wounded man to get vital information, and Joyce deals with the idea of sacrificing herself so that Buffy can save the world. Consequently, this is NOT a Buffy book FOR YOUNGER READERS. Things get pretty heavy here and the characters have to deal with these issues.

Now that several television seasons have passed since this trilogy was first written it is worthwhile to note that Golden and Holder accurately predicted some significant character developments regarding the Scobby Gang. Certainly Willow is now as powerful a wicca at the end of Season 5 as she was in this novel, Xander is finally getting past his comic relief stage, Joyce certainly accepted Buffy being the Slayer before her untimely death, and Cordelia is much more accepting of her role in the scheme of things (albiet on "Angel" instead of "Buffy"). So in retrospect the authors deserve credit for seeing where Joss Whedon was going with these characters on the two shows.

Of all the people writing Buffy books, Golden and Holder are the two I would love to see take a stab at writing an actual episode of the show. Many of the Buffy books read like rejected scripts, storylines they would never bother to film that add little to the characters or the mythos of the series. The Gatekeeper Trilogy provides two ideas completely worthy of being included in the show. The first is the role of the Gatekeeper, a magical being who is responsible for binding up various monsters and demons, which is to say a Champion for Good, similar to the Slayer but certainly a unique idea. The second is the Ghost Roads, not just as a rationale for getting the characters out of Sunnydale to find the big bad evil but also as a way for the characters to confront the past, as in the first volume when Angel sees the shade of Jenny Calendar. Holder has successfully incorporated elements on the Ghost Roads in other Buffy novels she has written, which I judge to be a good thing. Again, this is just testimony to the quality of both the conception and the execution of this trilogy. So hurry up and read "The Ghost Roads" so you can download the final installment of "The Gatekeeper Trilogy."