MO

I fell in love with the youngster in LITTLE Mo, an eight-year-old kid who knew first-hand the "stink and heat" of ghetto America, a place that bred "rats-as-big-as-cats". He is a heart-tugger as he leaves the old high-rise and finds a new life where he relishes the fragrance of fields of clover...his "popcorn balls"...with the sensitivity of an impoverished poet. He smiles as he describes his family's version of New England Boiled Dinner...potatoes and flour-thickened water, seasoned, with a smidgen of salt and pepper. He gloats over a BB gun and his first contributions to the family's dinner table...illegal though they might have been. He discovers the unfairness of the adult world when a first-grade teacher smashes his fingers for writing perfect letters...the crime he didn't understand was perpetrated with his left hand. He takes his bumps and bruises with a light heart even when his dad pounds him to a pulp for staying out late, and when he is forced to fight the bully on the block...a hulk three years bigger and many pounds crueler. I found myself playing Huck Finn games along a pretend "Mississip", and building a homemade missile...a "gadget that gurgled like a pan of Ma's thick vanilla pudding" until "the toxic snot began to vaporize". I saw him making a fortune toting newspapers...(tapping the drunks at the Bar and Grille), selling fishbait... "catching and counting critters". I cried with him as he drove his fist into a post after little Reggie, trying out his birthday bike on the new-fangled aspalt, is scrunched and torn beneath a gravel truck. Perhaps even more heart-moving is the basement fight, a fight he didn't want but found himself in because he was a little kid trusting those who should know better. I'd like to have known a kid like that, one who took a licking and came out with a heart ticking loud enough for the world to hear. Within the sometimes-harsh language...used with the innocence of childhood...come the nostalgic details that portray the fifties as a turning point in the nation's history. As Conway says, "Something happened in this land, something I do not like. And he reminds the world, "You can go back and have what you like of it, if you can remember.... "LITTLE Mo is a must-read, a one-of-a-kind look at a way of life that can still build heroes.

"Little Mo" is a memoir of childhood in Flint, Michigan which recreates revealing scenes, the vignettes from a life that say so much about how character is formed, maybe even determined. In this impressionist landscape Jim Conway has not only recorded a personal perspective on childhood but also brought to life the distinctive time and place in which he grew up in a way sure to speak to his generation. (Robert L. Root, Jr. PhD., Author of "The 4th Genre: Writers Of/On Creative Nonfiction")

John Dinan, PhD. says this memoir is "reminiscent of literature ranging from Twain's 'Life on the Mississippi' to the darker initiations of Hemingway's 'In Our Time'...Conway's work quietly dramatizes some of the central themes of our national literature..(it is) well-crafted and deeply felt. It is worth our undivided attention."

this is a good book to start learning cobol with he starts with the basics and moves on to the more advanced topics. However it really only teaches the language itself and not the best ways to structure programs etc. Experience in programing is what is really needed.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that COBOL in 21 Days covered such a wide range of functions. Although I've used COBOL for years, I had not been exposed to using it for object-oriented programming or generating HTML. It's nice to see these features, but... the true power of this course lies in it's "real world" examples that systematically build into a strong foundation of COBOL knowledge. The authors ability to present code examples with clear explanations and chapter reviews enables the reader to quickly absorb the material. I was also pleased to see that the course "really" could be completed within 21 days.

This book has become required reading for new programmers at my clients site. It has also become a point of reference for the more senior programmers. If you don't already have a COBOL compiler, don't fret as the Acucobol system on the CD is all that you'll need (including runtime, debugger, utilities, etc.)

I give this book my highest recommendation for anybody wishing to become a competent COBOL programmer

I've worked with COBOL (on many platforms) over the years and am delighted to see that Mr. Budlong's course covers many new features and technologies (HTML, GUI, OOPs etc.) that I haven't been able to do in COBOL before.

More importantly, this course provides a fast-track to "COBOL competence" that is comfortably-paced and can certainly be completed within the 21-day timeframe. The code samples that drive the course provide ALL of the COBOL fundamentals necessary to begin mastery this language. Another benefit is that the samples are VERY WELL written and will help the beginner to get off to a good start by writing in clear and elegant style.

COBOL in 21 Days is an important reference in my clients library and is "required reading" for all new programmers. I give this book my highest recommendation and would urge anyone wishing to become a solid COBOL Programmer to make this his/her starting point.

Mr. Coffman has done a good job of transporting his readers back to a time of adventure for young men that would be hard to find today. The book is informative and at times amusing. I enjoyed it.

Having grown up during this era, I can relate to the way things were done in this generation. It should be considered a remarkable event when the author has the commitment and opportunity to revisit places and events which were a part of his life almost 60 years ago. It is obvious that his Forest Service experiences left a lasting impression on the author as a young man. The reader is brought into those experiences with considerable detail.

This is the story of the way life was in the Clearwater National Forest and elsewhere for the folks who lived and worked for the Forest Service about 60 years ago. The author's vivid memories are etched in details that make great reading. Some of his recounts are quite amusing and others testify to the danger and tough mindset required to live in the conditions common to those days and the area. The book let me relive similar experiences from long ago. I especially enjoyed the photos showing lookouts, scenery and people of the US Forest Service.

This book was great. It was adventure to read this book and the photos gave me a good vision of what happened in the book. I think it is a great book to read for baseball fans espicially and all other kids. Also, it shows a lot about his life, more than just Mo's baseball skills. But, I didn't rate it 5 stars because there were some bad things. I think the ending is really bad because it doesn't really conclude the story. Also, I think the story was too short, I had read it in 3 hours even though I am a fast reader. But, overall it was a decent book.

i tink the book was exellent.i also think that matt christopher is a great auther.befor i read at the plate with mo vaughn i read on the court with michael jordan.i also thought that book was great.the thing i like about these books is that is tells all about there lives and how and what they had to do to get into the pro's. it also tells about how they didnt give up.i think u should read this book and read on the court with micheal jordan.

This book really shows how Mo Vaughn's childhood was, with lots of little stories about his life. It has great pictures and it really tells a lot. It's a great book for kids because it's easy to understand.

For anyone who has read Cypress, Sassafrass and Indigo by Shange, this book will seem mediocre in comparison. On the other hand, what it is is an excellent social document depicting the experiences of an African-American family in St. Louis of the 1950's. It describes the pressure that the combat of racism puts on a family---Betsey Brown runs away at the age of 12 because she is being bused to a school full of "crackers." Betsey doesn't want to have to do everything for the "race"-she just wants to be a comfortable 12 year old girl with her neighborhood friends.

Other tensions happen between the husband and mother when the husband (Greer Brown, a doctor) and the wife (Jane Brown) a nurse argue over whether their children should participate in civil rights demonstrations. The mother, like her daughter, is forced to leave home as she does not want her children to participate. Later she returns to the man she loves, and her lovable, if noisy and rambunctious children.

Another important sub theme to this novel is that of class. The Browns are the creme de la creme of African-American society, (Greer is one of only 5,000 African-American doctors in America at that time) Yet there is a constant stream of characters who are not so graced; Miss Calhoun, a maid who lasts only one day because the children don't like her, Regina, who is dismissed by the Browns for having a boyfriend, and Carrie, who is forced to take care of the children and work as a domestic. Betsey herself is shamed by one of her friends for making Miss Calhoun miserable-as the childs mother is herself a maid, and Betsey begins to re-examine her attitudes from that point on. Later she encounters Regina working as a prostitute-she has been apparently abandoned by her boyfriend. All this quickly sends Betsey running back to her middle-class home.

If I learned anything from this book it is that life was hard for everyone characterized at this time period. While being forced to confront prejudice forces both Betsey and her mother out of the home, confrontation with life outside the home sends them running back. The lesson of this book seems to be that upper-middle class black women are forced to confront racism whether they like it or not-either on behalf of their lesser favored sisters or because they wish to keep their families together. Their priviledged status does not make them exempt from any fights on behalf of everyone else in their community.

Betsy and her family is just trying to make it through everyday family problems. Betsey and her siblings school is integrated for the first time. The story is set in St Louis 1959. Betsy is a nice read.

Betsey Brown is me when I was 13, and is still me 11 years later! I saw myself in the book and I was pleasently surprised to find that out. I fell in love with the book within the first few pages. The only complaint that I have with the book is that its not LONGER!!!!

I heard great things about the book but was a little disappointed. She dedicated only a very small portion of the introduction to the specifics of WI soil conditions, etc. I suspect the rest of the material regarding plant varieties was written on a formula provided by the publisher. (they do these books for a lot of states) Although she does address some WI specific issues for each variety, I thought the coverage was over simplified and I would have loved pictures included with the text. (All of the pictures are less than an inch high and inserted in the center of the book.) It's a nice attempt at a broad set of topics. Maybe it would have been even better with less of a "follow the formula" form.

This is one of the books that I refer to often when deciding what to plant in our yard.

Descriptions of the plant, whether it's a native species, and recommendations for certain varieties to look for, are very useful.

Is it a single resource that answers all of your questions? No. But no one book could be, and that's why you choose a few valuable books to provide a range of information.

If you live in Wisconsin, this book should be in your reference collection.

The book contains 445 pages, about 30 pages are on general gardening and 30 pages are specific to Wisconsin. Specific information includes a full page color USDA Hardiness Map of Wisconsin with detail showing county borders, Wisconsin frost maps, monthly temperature & precipation data for 27 Wisconsin cities, lists of Wisconsin gardens and societies, and more.

The remaining 385 pages are about selected species. And these pages contain some of the best information that I have ever read in a garden book. If you buy it just for these pages, you will have an excellent reference book no matter where you live.

The species info covers 26 annuals, 15 bulbs, 17 ground covers, 10 ornamental grasses, 28 perennials, 6 roses, 25 shrubs, 30 trees, 3 turf grasses, and 9 vines, with 160 small photos. The info is perfectly arranged with two pages of text per each species. Each contain a paragraph on when to plant, where to plant, how to plant, care, additional info, and other varieties. My kind of book - all the info in one place and easy to find.

If you garden in Wisconsin, this is a must have book!

Unlike all my other garden books, I actual know of every species talked about in this book. The book talks about the plants we grow in Wisconsin. And best, Myers tells us about some popular plants that don't do well here (I wish the plant nursery would have told me this before they sold me many wrong varieties). I learned this by trial and error.

My only criticism about the book is that I wish she had written another volume. Great information!

Timothy Mo, the twice Booker Prize nominated writer of part Chinese descent, writes with confidence and authority about the marriage of an outsider (Wallace) into a Cantonese family and his eventual acceptance by the patriach who breaks with tradition and hands the reins over to him when he dies. The first third of the novel is undeniably captivating and often hilarious in its authentic account of Chinese customs and beliefs and in its characterisation of the various members of the Poon family, from the loutish Ah Lung to the two unmarried sisters, the elder of whom makes a thunderous noise when she washes in the morning. Mabel is another unforgettable character. But as soon as Wallace and May Ling are packed off to Mainland China, the pace starts to slacken and I found myself quickly losing interest. Things didn't improve much even when the scene shifted back to Hong Kong for the final third of the novel. I found myself skimming the pages and looking forward to its end. It was a major source of irritation for me that Mo makes all his characters speak in the weirdest past tense, an attempt no doubt to capture in dialogue the ungrammatical English used by Hongkongers, but it only comes across as cute and condescending. "The Monkey King" reads like the real thing for the most part but is ultimately disappointing.

Timothy Mo's first novel is a blisteringly funny account of the misadventures of Wallace Nolasco, a Macau native who marries into a wickedly dysfunctional Cantonese merchant's family. Set in an evocatively depicted 1950s Hong Kong, this book is a devastatingly funny account of Chinese culture and family life. In many ways it remains acccurate even today.

The Monkey King contains many many wonderful insights into colonialism, Confucianism and family politics. This is a humane, arch and beautifully-written piece of social and human analysis blended with touches of whimsy and magical realism.

Like Sun Wu Kong the famous Monkey King of "Journey to the West", Wallace uses his brains, sleight of hand and force of imagination to eventually pull success from the jaws of failure. However, the disturbing ending of the book points to deeper and darker forces at work within this sunny and good-humored tale.

Some people may have a problem with the "dialect" that Mo has his Cantonese-speaking characters use when they are speaking "Chinglish", personally I think it's a marvellous use of an artistic convention to confront speakers of standard English with the fact that local dialect adaptations of English (not elite-sanctioned text-book varieties) are the standard method of communication in many different places.

Despite the official pronouncements, this book is actually alive and well and available through the UK Amazon site. It is published by Mo's own Paddleless Press which he set up in 1995 after he sacked Random House as his publisher.

I first read this novel, set in 1950's Hong Kong, while living in Hong Kong in the nineteen nineties - a cracking good read.
An eccentric Chinese family living in a crumbling, atmospheric town house (of the kind that has, alas, been utterly swept away by remorseless development) is slowly revealed to the reader in absorbing, fascinating detail. I was amazed, as a Hong Kong resident, at how many of the actions and attitudes of Mr Mo's fictional family were still to be encountered in nineteen nineties Hong Kong (and no doubt today). I felt I met these people, or observed them, many times while living there.
A sad, funny, ironic book that gains in strength by not becoming sentimental about Hong Kong, nor pulling any punches. Like other accurate reads about Hong Kong (such as Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong - read it if you like this one), Monkey King tended to put a bee in the bonnet of some readers, chiefly those types so well-described by Mr Mo herein, and may be a painful read for some. But the detached reader has in store for him an excellent story, great characters and (an added plus) a book that is very informative about the Hong Kong of reality.

The book overall was rather well done. I liked the rating system and all the different asepects that were measured for each artist. However, there were many inaccuracies in the details. At times it seemed as if Kool Moe Dee had not even heard the artists freestyle or battle and yet he made guesses and gave them good ratings. It was also a shock that Big L was not even mentioned and that itself lowered my opinion of the book.

Yo believe it or not people, I just got a chance to speak to the author himself KMD discussing this great book! We stayed on the phone talkin' til 4am debatin' about my own list and some changes I made on his list. Word is, the responses have been so hectic he's gonna do a documentary on it and has asked me to be in it politicin' my disagreements on certain artists and omissions(Eminem,DMX,CL Smooth etc.)It was absolutely an honor to be talkin' to my man and I am looking foward to meeting him in person in a couple of weeks to discuss more on the project. It is scheduled to start shooting in May-July and to be released in February 2005! Look for me SAV as the one who has alot to say about his list. If anyone wants more info on me and KMD conversation just E-mail me at: byrd14@hotmail.com. Peace and I'll see ya'll at the movies!

At last, somebody finally got it right!!! I read this book in five days!!! That's how thorough it was. What better person to analyze and rate the best emcees than Kool Moe Dee, someone who was in the rap game from virtually the beginning (with the legendary Treacherous Three), lived the rap game, had hits as a solo artist, and understands the rap game. If I ever see another "Greatest rappers of all time" list on MTV, VH1, or even BET, I will change the channel in a heartbeat!!! I knew there was something wrong when one of those three channels had Rakim rated #20 and Puff Daddy rated ahead of him, and Kool G. Rap not even making the list. For Kool Moe Dee to break down Spoonie Gee, Grandmaster Caz and Just-Ice the way he did, you know KMD knows his hip-hop!!! He definitely sets the record straight in this book. This is definitely a must-read for all aspiring Emcees/Rappers as to the criteria of being a really good emcee. This book is worth 10 stars to me!!!

I really tried to get into this book, but infortunately, it never reached the point of "flowing" for me.

I thought the plot was well conceived. In "The Girls," we get to know four women, who have been friends for decades, through the death of one man, Pete Chickery. One of "The Girls" was married to Pete, but all of them had a relationship of one type or another with him. After he is killed, the story of who Pete was, what he meant to each of them, and their relationships with one another come into focus. While this core group intrigued me, the peripheral characters - children, parents, housekeepers, etc., really gummed up the works for me. The story was simple, but the more characters that I was intoduced to, the more my interest waned.

I also didn't particularly care for the structure of the first three "chapters," when each character was speaking directly to another person to whom we had not been introduced. Yet, when we finally meet that person, she is simply a part of the story, and not the omniscient presence that I was prepared to meet. Perhaps the reason that the story failed to "flow" for me, was due to that fact that once I became accustomed to one voice, it changed dramatically into another, then another. It never had the rythym that it needed to keep me turning pages.

What a joy to read an author who *knows* about women. Having found myself on the floor under the dining room table (with cereal in my hair) more than once in my 49+ years I applaud the author. She spins a tale that is real. How refreshing.

What can I say, this book was surely one of the best and most thrilling, I've ever read. During the first few pages I hadn't got a clou what the hell all this was about, but once I had the point, I couldn't stop readin. I wanted to know all about the girls, about the different characters, their lives, fears and their relation with Michael. You should go to the next bookshop and get it. Thrilling, funny and excellently written. If there were mor than 5 stars, I'd give more

As a student of English literature I found this book hard to follow at first. Yet reading beyond a certain point, I understood the specialness of the diverse characters and the interelations between the characters. It is a beautiful book if you are willing to take the time to read deep into the novel. I'm glad I got the chance to read this novel.

Mo has a good sense of humor and a heart-warming way with characters. This tale of a Chinese family in England is at times a good series of lessons on Chinese culture.

Somewhat clumsily (at times) juxtaposing triad gang strife with the struggle of a family to succeed, Mo weaves a story that is fun to read.

Mo is a master craftsman of dialogue. His careful way of transposing Cantonese into English is to be praised... the reader really feels he is understanding another language.

I recommend this novel without reservation. It is almost a shock to read a novel written in a classically disciplined style. Mo's writing doesn't take short cuts or skip on background. It isn't The Red and The Black, but it isn't Gravity's Rainbow either. What it is is conventional in the finest sense and bold in terms of story and character rather than style. I was swept up in the story of the Chen family and the London triad. Having lived in Taiwan for over a year, I also enjoyed all of the Chinese culture. This book made me much more sympathetic to the Chinese despite the fact that it pulls no punches in describing their peculiar ethos. Very enjoyable read.