On-the-print

Let's get this over with I do not like cats. Dogs are much more loyal, always happy to see you and some dogs actually work. You never hear of a cat rescuing anyone from frozen terrain.

With that out of the way, lets talk about the most refreshing, humorous book to hit the bookshelves. If you ever wanted to know a "Feline's perspective on love, life and litter", this book is for you. It's one of those rare books that you can share with your children.

Cleo and Tyrone spend the days dreaming, emailing each other, plotting ways to drive their Mommies and the dog, Loopy Ole Chester, nuts. They views of the world will have you laughing out loud.

Now if only Linda Hamner and L.Virginia Browne would write another Cleo and Tyrone novel... solving mystery?

A must-read for "feline-ophiles" and anyone who has ever wondered what really goes on inside the mind of a cat. Not to mention that it's a love story, too. The authors have perfect captured the essence of "felineness" as epitomized by those two artistes of the keyboard, Cleo and Tyrone. Their unique outlook on life is hilarious and insightful both to cats and humans too.

This is the present you should buy for yourself and every other cat lover you know. It's funny, it's touching, and it gets inside the minds of two extraordinary felines. If you were ever wondering what your cat was thinking when you weren't around (or even when you are!), this book explains it all to you. A really must-own book, and I hope all the cat world becomes aware of it. Even ailurophobes (hope I spelled that right!) will have their fears confirmed: Cats really ARE smarter than most of us and this book proves it! I am looking forward to seeing Cleo's screenplay made into a major motion picture!

The Amos Walker series is an outstanding one if you like your private detectives male, tough and laconic. If you like to read about Detroit, so much the better. In A Smile on the Face of the Tiger, Mr. Estleman has risen above the rest of the series by turning Amos Walker into a detective surrounded by a pulp fiction mystery in a pulp fiction book. The book reminded me very much of the classy Hoodwink by Bill Pronzini in the Nameless Detective series.

I listened to the unabridged audiocassette read by John Kenneth, and especially recommend this way of enjoying the book. The telephonic versions of voices are particularly well done, and add a lot to the realism of the story.

Louise Starr, the sexually provocative book editor from Amos's past, has started up her own title. Pulp fiction author Eugene Booth has inexplicably cancelled his contract to reprint one of his paperbacks from the 1950s, Paradise Valley. Starr hires Amos to find Booth and learn why Booth has declined. She hopes to persuade Booth to change his mind. Relying on clues from Booth's novels and leads from his last address, a trailer park near the airport, Amos soon locates Booth through his acquaintances. That shifts the scene to northern Michigan where Booth and Amos become whiskey buddies . . . until tragedy intervenes. What does it have to do with a race riot in the 1940s, a 50-plus year-old murder, and a contract killer?

It's hard to know what to praise the most in this book: the pulp references; the remarkable descriptions; the tough guy dialogue; the action; or the subtle misdirections in the plot. Each aspect is very fine. Seldom does an author totally stump me on motive, but Mr. Estleman easily ran circles around me. I enjoyed the suspense of his unraveling of the tangled skein of clues.

As I finished this book, I realized that it is very easy to delude oneself about what is going on. Facing unpleasant truths is a critical element in improving your situation. It's a worthwhile lesson from a very enjoyable book.

Most mystery series have become either worn out or routine by the time they get around to their 15th outing. Not so Loren Estlemen's Amos Walker P.I. series. If anything, Estlemen and his hero are getting better. "A Smile of the Face of the Tiger" is the fourth Walker book since Estlemen took a seven year hiatus from his favorite shamus, and it is easily the best of the "comeback" novels. Walker remains one of the few who truly does carry on the torch of Phillip Marlowe with his lonliness, cynicism and uncorruptible nature.

This time out, he tracks a old pulp fiction writer who has disappeared after turning down an advance to reprint one of his old novels. I've seen this story line several times before, but Estlemen gets clever with it. Along the way, he weaves in his usual menacing mobster (a Sammy "the Bull" Gravano clone, no less) and corrupt police officer angles, also in a fresh and unique way. It also helps that Estlemen puts two of the series's better supporting characters, police Lieutenant Mary Ann Thaler and beguiling publisher's representative Louise Starr, to good use this time out. As always, the real hero of the story is the once great city of Detroit, still struggling to regain some of its lost luster, this time with casino gambling.

Overall, Walker is among the best private detectives in the literary world today, and this is one of his best novels to date.

As a mystery writer with my first novel in initial release, I fondly recall the hours I spent reading Loren Estleman's Amos Walker series as I learned to write PI fiction. Amos Walker is a masterful creation, and A SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER is a masterful work. In this novel, Walker is hired by a New York publisher to hunt down a paperback mystery writer who will not allow his fifty-year-old classic to be reprinted. Along the way, Walker discovers the author's reasons and undercovers sordid truths about race relations in America. Estleman has dealt with Detroit's history thoroughly in past works, and he has also touched upon the interesting literary history of paperback pulp fiction. Mr. Estleman is at his most effective here in A SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER. It is a great book, and I recommend it highly.

This book has changed my life. I am richer than ever before and the girls have such a sence of humor. Excellent work.

"Conversations..." is one of those books that you don't have to read from cover to cover to "get" it. You can just open it to one of the 18 topics and get a quick jolt of inspiration, laughter, or motivation. Or you can sit down and write out all the exercises and gain deeper understanding of the aspects of your self. There are also affirmations, quotations, and poetry which can be copied and stuck where you can see them and be reminded of the direction you've chosen on your path. I recommend this book to anyone who is seeking clarity on their spiritual path.

This book came to me at a time that was trying for me. I needed the spiritual, down-to-earth wisdom of the authors. It is written in very simple language that makes sense. I would reccommend it to anyone that is having a "bad time." And I would reccommend it to others to keep on tap for bad times.

But isn't a simple word like the same word wants to explain. It's a beautifull Story, like " Beauty and the Beast", for me, 'cause Creasy -the strong man with a blooding past- is perfectly sense to everything that the little Pinta shows him. Of course, after of a planified attack to his heart, Pinta makes that Creasy seen through her eyes the wonderful that the word can be for all of us. In a book that I wrote (but it's not published yet), a twenty-five years old man is falled in love of his cousin of 9, but this guy it's not a pervert man, only he wish to stay very near of her for teach her everything that he knows, and love her, of course, but not sexually. The Pinta and Creasy's story is very similllar to mine, but bloodeless. At end, I believe that this book can send us a great message: that we must to believe in love, in every its forms, because in the future, it can save this hitted planet. (I'm sorry if my english it's not perfect, but seems that it's the only way that my apreciation of this book "se muestre" on-line.

I am both an ex-Legionnaire and a former body guard. I was amazed by the books accuracy and still wonder to this day if Mr Quinnell wasn't either a Legionnaire himself or a bodyguard. The sequel "A Perfect Kill" was equally wonderful though I was less enamored with the third book in the series. Unfortunately the movie starring Scott Glenn was a total disapointment and I only hope that they redo it at some stage. If you're looking for someone to play Creasy..... PS: Is the fact that Creasy is an anagram of scarey just coincidence?

This was the first Quinnell book that I had picked up. From the first page, I could see all the character completely in my mind. This book is the similar to the movie "The Professional" only in its bond between protector and protected. After that, this book will move you as if you had suffered a personal loss and were seeking retaliation.

This book is a delightful and enchanting story

A heavy reader, I have excellent recall but there is one book I read in my teens which I have always looked for and could not find. I am happy to be able to order it here.

It is a story of simple young love which is thwarted by a number of societal rules...and as we watch the two parallel lives unfold, we are startled, near the end, to watch them pass one another again...our emotions never recover. That is why I must read it again as I ender old age myself.

I could've cried over this book. What teen girl who loves heartbreakers wouldn't?(besides me? i've only cried over one book but shhh. don't tell. this book should be cried over). Aldrich wrote this book to touch hearts, I can see that already! This book was so sweet, and through it all, I just wanted to cry thinking how Mathias and Amalia were able to put their short, yet sweet romance behind them. Anyway, Mathias was working in the shop one day, when his future "kliene taub,"(little dove) walks in. Her name is Amalia, and she is the most beautiful thing that Mathias had ever seen. Instantly, the two are in love. Mathias calls on her every Sunday after that, even after he discovers that Amalia is unhappily betrothed to someone else. Well, just when they descide to tell her father, Amalia's Luthren family takes her west, leaving Mathias in Illinois. The two are heartsick with their broken romance. Mathias goes west after her, but comes too late, for she is already wed, and he doesn't even know where she is. But, just because the romance is broken, doesn't mean the love is. The two go on loving each other throughout the rest of their lives, even though they haven't seen eachother since those earlier days, and even though they find others to love along the ways. This was a truly sweet story, and beautifully written.

Who would have thought having those forgetful, sometimes embarrassing, senior moments could be so much fun--at least when they happen to someone else. I thoroughly enjoyed Karen O'Connor's depiction of the delightful roller coaster ride we take in the process of becoming "blessed with many years." Her humorous and sometimes touching stories provide models of how we can greet our advancing years with a philosophical attitude and a wry smile. Her comments and prayers at the end of each story help us put it all into perspective.

Karen O'Connor's new book is a gem. I found myself laughing out loud, nodding and then relaying her quips and common sense with friends and family. I've always enjoyed Ms. O'Connor's other books, but this is the best yet. It's also a book to share. Buy one for yourself and give 'em as presents "just because." That's what I'm going to do.

Karen has the knack to make every reader smile and feel better about some of those uncertain moments as we age!! I know her personally and not only does she write with a special creative talent, she lives her words. This makes a great gift for birthdays and any other special occassions. It will sure help make my Christmas list easier.

Henry Beston on the trail of Thoreau's great hike along the cape stays to capture if he can "the very psyche of animals" and rises to metaphysical levels with the greatest command of the English language. Nature exists, he finds, and "creation is here and now." Everything acts, and acts characteristically, and in detailing their interactions he discovers that he is in them also. Outermost house leads inevitably to innermost house.

I had never heard of Henry Beston until a friend lent me--or, more accurately, pressed on me--his copy of The Outermost House. After reading this book, I understand his sense of urgency: this is a work of unique and lasting beauty, surely one of the greatest nature books ever written. In detailing his year in his cottage at Eastham Beach (now Coast Guard Beach) on the Atlantic side of Cape Cod, Beston combines a Thoreauvian zeal for nature and the examined life with a Proustian ability to record exactly the sight, sound, feel and scent of the world around him. Page after page is filled with unforgettable passages; his descriptions of the markings and songs of the shore birds alone are enough to move you to tears. His story of the plight of a doe caught in an icy flood is almost as suspenseful as a Hitchcock movie; his tribute to the courage of the Coast Guard "surfmen" who rescue shipwrecked sailors is particularly resonant to us who--after Sept. 11, 2001--have learned something about the value of those who safeguard the public. Beston is so quotable a writer that I'm shocked he's not better known. A few quotes should demonstrate:
"Nature is a part of our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery man ceases to be man."
"Man can be either less than man or more than man, and both are monsters, the last more dread."
"Poor body, time and the long years were the first tailors to teach you the merciful use of clothes! Though some scold today because you are too much seen, to my mind, you are not seen fully enough or often enough when you are beautiful."
"Poetry is as necessary to comprehension as science. It is as impossible to live without reverence as it is without joy."
Henry Beston found urban life insupportable in the mid-1920s; who could know the dismay he would feel in 2002, when computers, television and jet planes make the world pass in a blur! Beston is out to teach us how to slow down, to learn to live again according to the patterns and rhythms of nature. For those who are willing to read and understand, The Outermost House remains a haven of peace and beauty.

The Outermost House is a classic, not just of natural history literature, but of American literature. If you love the outdoors, or the sea, or prose that flows like poetry, you should keep this small book always nearby. The harried introvert will especially appreciate it: reading even a page or two will transport you to a quiet place where the wind through the dune grass is the only sound that strikes your ear.

In addition to being a great writer, Beston is an acute observer biological phenomena, and not a bad theorist either. His discourse on the relationship other animals bear to us ("They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations...") does more to unlink the Great Chain of Being than any philosophical essay. And Beston's influence has been wide-ranging, not only among natural history writers, but among writers in general: unless I am mistaken, The Outermost House is one of the sources for the "Dry Salvages" section of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. (If no one else has noticed that before, I want coauthorship on the paper!)

Some books are so memorable that parts of them become internalized on first reading. The first time I read The Outermost House, its final sentence -- as graceful an example of polysyndeton as you will find in English -- became mine. Now, I pass it on to you: "For the gifts of life are the earth's, and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach."

This is a small book, almost a pamphlet, so it works very nicely for readings during a quiet retreat. Nouwen reminds us of the importance of solitude for service. The book is composed of a few sermons he gave at Yale and is one of those books where you'll find yourself wanting to excerpt quotes to stick on the wall by your computer. I'll give you one as an example: "It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts." The book is an affirmation.

This was a very informative and a very simple read. In a nutshell, it defines how important solitude is in terms of how we can't get caught up impressing life judges. Also, "It teaches us", not to become restless of our actions for our only way of aquiring self pride.

Henri also shows people how to be glad by applying the example of jesus to your life. Also, to deal with the challenges which God applies for you, only to make youself stronger.

I find it amazing that he could put all this very enlighting material into this very short read. I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about life. To various people who want to find the ticket to extreme happiness, this book is for you!

This book spoke deeply to me. As a parent with young children, I have often felt guilty for needing "my space." Nouwen removes my feelings of guilt and selfishness by explaining this need for time alone as being a spiritual need where growth and connection with God are possible. Contains few pages, but a big message.

This is theatre of the mind at its best.I like Bud Collyer,the voice of the Man of Steel, better than ANY movie or TV Superman.I love the way he did Clark Kent as a tenor and Superman as a baritone-especially when Clark turns into his alter ego and Collyer would change mid-sentence-"This looks like a job FOR SEPERMAN!"The stories are action-packed and the serial format keeps you on the edge of your seat!Once you start listening,you won't want to stop!If you only know the man from Metropolis from books,movies nad TV you should get this.

I bought a copy of this great audio collection last weekend! I am a big comic book fan, and enjoy listening to and reading the classics. This is a must have for any comic book history collector! The quality is superior, and the great plots have you listening for hours on end. I enjoy having the tapes run in the background while I do my work in the office. I almost feel like I am reporter at the Daily Planet!

I love this CD set. This 5 CD set containing 27 action-packed radio episodes starts off with the explosion of Krypton and works in all of the classic Superman elements. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, Clark Kent and the Man of Steel. Did you know Jimmy Olsen appeared in the Radio Series long before his freckled face showed up in the comic?

This box set starts off with Supermans origin. A hero being useless without villians, he quickly faces off against serial style villians like the Yellow Mask and the Wolf. All the sound has been remastered and it comes in a great box set. I love it!

Reading this book was like taking a trip down Memory Lane. Ms Young tells her story of growing up in Louisiana. She learns life lessons at the feet of her great grandmother, Big Momma, at the table with her grandmother, Honeymoon, and through encounters with her own mother. The author takes each lesson learned and tells a related story that pertains to her childhood. We watch as Yolanda grows up and makes some mistakes such as buying $500 worth of designer clothes to fit in with her classmates. She learns about following her dreams and not letting dreams die. She learns the value of family as she sees her family stick together through all kinds of adversities.

Often times when a not so famous person write their memoirs, I wonder why they think their story needs to be told. In this memoir, I think the author gives just enough information to make a person look back and reflect on their life and see how life lessons help shape who they are as adults. This book brought a lot of memories as I can relate to many of the same experiences in one way or another. I can remember Sunday evenings in Bible Training Union, going skating after church on Sundays, singing in the youth choir. The difficulty of trying to fit in with the other children at school, and still trying to maintain your strong Christian values and upbringing. Most of all I can remember conversations with my grandmothers and mother that I credit for shaping my life.

This is a wonderful quick enjoyable read and highly recommended!

Jeanette Wallington
APOOO BookClub

The book is an EXCELLENT read! It is insightful, humorous, and courageous. Yolanda does a wonderful job of accurately and vividly depicting the book's setting (Stoner Hill, Shreveport). Being a homegirl, I would know. I could relate to the strong family ties (being privy to three maternal generations) and the awkwardness of being a gifted black child in a predominantly white school.

I was particularly drawn by a specific incidence in the book, the "press 'n perm" thing. I also had one. My long, thick hair had been one of the things I liked about myself also and was identified by it. But all of it came out!! I looked like a plucked chicken!! And my grandmother and great-grandmother also made the same type of comments as did Yolanda's "Big Momma." Similar to the author, I think at that time I really began to overcompensate in my thinking and intelligence arena, because I had lost the one tangible characteristic that helped set me apart.

Yolanda does a courageous job of revealing the type insecurities we face, not only as youngsters, but as adults. The book has something for everyone!!!

I just happened to pick this book up in the local library recently. Yolanda Young grew up in a completely different environment than I did, however, her stories cut to my soul. The chapters tell stories of her life and at the end of each there is a 'punch' that almost caught me off guard - quite profound. Though our stories may vary widely, there is common ground in our lives that crosses racial barriers. I just kept thinking, "Wow, this woman can write!" I love this book!