On-the-print

From TV to movies to a dark history of mystery noir, we just can't get our fill of that slice of humanity that passes for L.A. underbelly. And when we're talking L.A. Low, we're talking L.A. Law. For some reason, the lawyers getting theirs in this book never come off as quite slime-ball enough for my taste. But in fairness, there's a balancing act going on here between the ongoing plottings of a serial killer (so bland he blends) and his deserving victims. It's hard to tell who the real bad guys are without a good detective so Cannon delivers up her most well rounded protagonist yet - Joanna Davis, an empty nesting middle aged career cop who gets the case of a lifetime - especially after it becomes intensely personal. Cannon's SoCal circus is populated with a great sideshow of characters all given their marching orders by the masterful mystery ringmaster. How she loves to get crack that wit. On Viki Vale, trophy wife: "The lady shopped at some classy stores, but she had a gift for finding the sleaziest apparel each had to offer. Basically this was a room to get naked in. Trash will out." In the whatever happened to Vicki Vale category, hey? What did happen to Vicki Vale? No matter. Another character. "Nothing in this office indicated that its occupant had a personality. Including the occupant." Or the Midwest sheriff. "The big, barrel-chested sheriff wore no overcoat and his improbable uniform featured a lot of silly cords and complicated braids and shiny hardware. He looked like an organ grinder's monkey on steroids." Or a victim's wife as "an ebony stunner". Good stuff. This is a well plotted, highly engaging and entertaining read that cascades to a clever and unpredictable action climax. Mystery trolls will appreciate that this is an honestly written caper - the planted clues all come together in the end as Cannon gets the last laugh. Sometimes the author's sharp wit works against her; i.e. - "The Atterminator" - the name the local then national press ascribes to the lawyer killing antagonist works against giving the book a really gritty anchor. The female detective is almost too perennially optimistic - is this woman too nice to be a cop? I don't know. But she's likable. While investigating a twelve step program, she observes "Nobody had founded Cigars Anonymous, a program she considered desperately overdue." She doesn't have the angst or sex drive of Robert Crais' lady cop in L.A. Requiem and the only reason I bring that up is cause this book is close to being as captivating as that great piece of L.A. noir, imho. Any comparison in that company is pure compliment. Open Season on Lawyers is a good read that really gets up on its legs after the case breaks, running all the way to a heart pounding finish.

If you've ever had a less-than-happy experience with an attorney, you'll LOVE this book! It's everyone's fantasy about how to rid oneself of an enemy. Or perceived enemy, at any rate.

Joanna Davis is a wonderful creation; a police detective on the LAPD force who is tough yet sensitive, smart yet cautious, feminine but strong, a very young grandmother and an almost-menopausal woman, all rolled into one delightful bunch of contradictions. Any woman who reads this book would like to have a Joanna in her life as a friend.

Of course, almost anyone who reads this book would probably like to have the 'perp' as a friend, too, as long as one stayed on his good side. He's clever and funny and thoughtful and kind to the elderly; it's just most of the legal profession of which he's not overly fond.

This is a delightful book, satisfying in every way; it's well-written with a most unusual plot, right up to and including the last page, and peopled by characters you won't soon forget. I'm off to find more books by this author who was previously unknown to me. No longer, though.

This was an extremely fast paced book with infinite innuendoes. The suspect is revealed early on, but the mystery is at large until the very end. Ms Cannon appears to have an in depth knowledge of the LAPD workings and she skillfully uses this to her advantage. Warning - this is a hard book to put down!

What a great variety of classic sci-fi. Having recognized some of the titles & authors, I knew this would be good. Though the sound quality is not what we'd have today, it is superior to a lot of other radio broadcast reproductions I've heard. The slightly "scratchy" recordings of some of these gives a more nostalgic quality without diminishing the quality of the reading/acting. It some cases, the sound quality added to the mystery and suspense.
This collection is varied, having aliens coming to earth, earthlings going to alien worlds, humans reaching new frontiers on earth... actually under the water, immortality through science, and even kids involved in the storyline.
A better selection couldn't be put together than this. For a lifetime sci-fi fan and writer, this is "Sci Fi Hall of Fame" stuff.

My mother remembered the night Orson Welles panicked the country with "The War of the Worlds." I asked her if she was fooled by the broadcast and she said she was not. She was listening to Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on the other channel. Two things contributed to the hysteria caused by Welles' broadcast. Firstly, the news-report format of the show was extremely realistic, and secondly a number of listeners switched over to "The War of the Worlds" partway through the broadcast when an unpopular singer followed a commercial on the Charlie McCarthy show (I thought people didn't start channel surfing until the invention of the TV remote).

One wit said that all the intelligent people were listening to the dummy and all the dummies were listening to "The War of the Worlds." But that is unfair. When I listened to the show the first time, I was struck by the realism of the radio announcer's panicked description of the Martian attack. It reminded me of the broadcast of the Hindenburg tragedy, and I wasn't at all surprised to learn that the actor who played that part had consciously tried to model his delivery after that broadcast. We'd like to think we're smarter than our countrymen from that earlier time, but you need only look to the recent Y2K panic to realize we're not as sophisticated as we think.

"The War of the Worlds" isn't the only gem in the collection. "Donovan's Brain," "The Martian Chronicles," "The Time Machine," and "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea" are classics by anyone's definition. The other stuff isn't quite as good as these excellent episodes, tending toward sci-fi formula stories and space opera, but the high quality of the named shows would be hard to equal in any genre.

The fifties were the "Golden Age" of science fiction writing, with talents like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Alfred Bester all in their prime. Judging from the quality of the offerings in this collection, fifties radio sci-fi measured up quite well against printed science fiction.

A great collection. It has many classic shows, such as "The War of The Worlds", "Escape", and "Suspense". Ther is only one other radio show it needs. That is "Escape"'s brodcast of "The Earth Abadies". But it still is a fascinating collection.

In "Suspense"'s "Donovan's Brain", a multimillonaire's brain is kept alive by a scientist, played by Orson Wells. In "The War of The Worlds", Earth is invaded by martains. In "Lights Out"'s "The Metor Man", a semi vampire alien haunts a human couple. There are many more classics in this collection. Get it!

At the Las Vegas cat show, a major contender - a once beautiful Birman - is shaved before she gets a chance to compete. At the Circle Ritz, home to Midnight Louie, a big, black, tough-talking feline supersleuth and his roommate, petite PR pro Temple Barr, another Birman, landlady Electra Lark's psychic Karma, warns Louie that he must find a place where lots of cats are gathered because they are all in danger. Louie does his research by absorbing the newspaper classifieds (it's a sort of learning by osmosis, as he explains it.) And so Louie sets out for the cat show.

Meanwhile, in the Las Vegas parish of Our Lady Of Guadalupe the convent cat, Peter, is found nailed to the shed door of a neighbor, spinster Blandina Tyler, in a mock crucifixion. Miss Tyler just happens to keep many, many stray cats. Blandina is aunt to Peggy Wilhelm of the shaved Birman who is now stuck on guard duty at the cat show. Temple - in a fit of good samaritanism - volunteered to help feed them Blandina's cats to help Peggy out. Lucky for Peter, whom she finds and rushes to the vet, where he makes a good recovery. Soon she and neighbor Matt Devine are also in on the action.

Meanwhile, Louie goes undercover at the cat show - after all, it is a place where many cats are gathered and at least one has been threatened. In the process he manages to win Best of Show in the housecat category - even though he didn't enter. That's our boy - one superior dude! But it doesn't go to his head. Louie has a job to do!

Is the hot spot the show? Or the parish, where Temple's divine neighbor, Matt Devine's former grade school teacher has called him to assist with still another problem - the pastor has taken to tippling. Poor, nearly deaf Sister Mary Monica is getting obscene phone calls, although she doesn't realize it. ("He must love philosophy. He's always talking about Kant," she says.) And there are mysterious things that go bump in the night all around the convent area.

And then Miss Tyler is murdered - and we have another clutch of cats in danger - along with a baffling selection of wills, all leaving Miss Tyler's money to different people and/or cats. Suddenly suspects appear to be everywhere.

Meanwhile, back at the Circle Ritz, Temple has adopted a new roommate - a small black Humane Society cat called Caviar. Her real name, she tells her new feline roommate (whose name she does not yet know) is Midnight Louise. Louise has a plan of her own - revenge on her dear old Dad, who heartlessly deserted dear sweet Mom and the kits. Louie is not particularly pleased.

Can Louie hide his identity from Louise? Is she really Louie's daughter? (We suspect so when she manages to leave a couple clues of her own about where the action is - revealing that she has Louie's detection genes if not his massive size.) Will they be able to co-exist in Temple's apartment? Will we ever discover why Father Hernandez is tippling tequila, or who has it in for the show cats - or the convent area cats? Or who keeps calling Sister Mary Monica and talking about female dog breeding?

Somehow, Louie, Temple and Matt manage to keep all the many strands of mystery from getting too, too tangled, but not before Temple has to break out her newly learned martial arts skills to foil an arson and would-be killer, or before Louie escapes after being chloroformed in a sack - the next candidate for crucifixion.

Rest assured - Louie is tough - and smart - and is only a bit chagrined that his latest media appearance is made while he looks helpless and totally dissheveled with an oxygen mask over his puss. After all - he did lead all the right people to the right places so that the dastardly deeds are finally halted and order and safety are restored to both the cat world and the parish. You'll need to read the book to find out how - and that is an entertaining assignment indeed.

This is the third Midnight Louie book and the first in the alphabetical series that now goes through letter N. But if you missed Catnap and Pussyfoot, don't worry - this book stands on its own merits, as do all the books in the series. It is exciting, mysterious, and yet totally charming. Talking cats may sound too cutesy to believe, but there is nothing cute about Louie - or even his alleged newfound daughter, Caviar. These are street smart cats with an inborn intelligence and a novel way of looking at the world that just may give some new insights to the humans who read them.

Midnight Louie is at his best and most lovable in this romp through a murder at a cat show. How he is able to keep his excitable "Little Doll" under control and guide her to solving the mystery and other problems is quite engrossing. As always, Louie is the strong character and quite the inimitable tough private cat eye. A well plotted and well written book. Any cat lover and many a non-catlover mystery fan should love this book.

Midnight Louie, cat detective and tomcat about town (Las Vegas that is), and his "human," Temple Barr are on the prowl again after a mysterious happening at a cat show. Also, strange happenings occur at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church involving obscene phone calls, priestly secrets, and lots of cats. A good read which I couldn't put down. If you are a fan of Midnight Louis mysteries or any other Black Cat style mysteries, you'll enjoy this one. I couldn't put it down until I got to the very suspenseful ending. (And yes I do own a black cat!)

This is a thoughtful, three-dimensional portrait of one of my favorite actresses. It is well-researched, and full of anecdotes about Lansbury's life and thoughtful opinions of her film and television work. I learned much about Lansbury, and would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in her life and career.

THIS BOOK WAS A WONDERFUL INSIGHT INTO THE LIFE OF A GREAT LADY WHOS LIFE WAS AS INTERESTING AS THE MANY ROLES SHE HAS PLAYED THROUGH THE YEARS . MOVIES,STAGE,AND TV AND SONG SHE HAS DONE THEM ALL WITH STYLE AND ELEGANCE

Spread the Word--with the help of this guide, you can make Word perform like the higher-priced spread and make your book, newsletter, resume, or even your business letters look a thousand times better without investing in expensive page-layout software. Tells you everything that distinguishes professionally typeset text from generic, untweaked Word documents, and how to adjust Word's settings to get the best-looking results. It covers all recent versions of Word for both PC and Mac, and it's clearly and concisely written. You won't get the lengthy digressions on the history of type and printing that pad out some other books and jack up the price--they're interesting, sure, but they don't help get the job done when you've got a manuscript you want to turn onto a great-looking book.
As other reviewers have pointed out, the book itself is beautifully designed and typeset, and it was all done In Word. It's particularly useful for academic typesetting -- producing a scholarly book or journal -- because Word is the only program (besides the very expensive FrameMaker) that will automatically place footnotes at the bottom of the page. If you're a scholar and your publisher has asked you to produce camera-ready copy or PDF files for your book, you will die without this guide. But I recommend it for anyone who's self-publishing a book or doing any kind of desktop publishing.
One last piece of semi-disinterested advice: buy this book and, with the money you've saved on expensive software, hire a professional copyeditor to go over your manuscript before you typeset it. You will not regret it -- a copyeditor will find and fix hundreds of problems and inconsistencies that you probably weren't even aware existed. THEN use this guide to make your book a thing of beauty.

I just finished self-publishing my first book (ISBN 0974953652) and this ebook was really helpful. I originally bought it thinking it would teach me all about typesetting and Word. However, since it is only 15 pages it really just focuses on Word. After reading it I still didn't know anything about typesetting. In the book, he recommends reading "The Complete Manual of Typography" by James Felici. I bought that book and learned everything about typography that I needed. Then I went back and read Mr. Shepard's ebook and everything clicked. Once I understood typography, this ebook showed my the tricks I needed to know for doing it with Microsoft Word. It was a really helpful book. I wrote my entire 525 page book with Word and never once touched PageMaker or QuarkExpress. This book saved me a lot of hours of headaches. I gave my printing company the final PDF file and they said it was perfect. That was great news!

The one thing I wish the book would have covered is where to get fonts. I thought that Word has PS1 fonts installed by default and it doesn't. Then I tried to find some fonts online and they are very expensive. After much searching I found out that Adobe sells a beginning set of PS1 fonts for not much money. This has everything you need to print a standard book. I wish Mr. Shepard's book would have discussed that and saved me hours of searching the internet for information. But now that you know this tip, buy his book and you will have everything you need to be a self-publisher.

If you are an author or would-be self publisher and words like typeface, linespacing, em dashes, kerning, CMYK, RGB, distiller, widows and orphans sound like a foreign language you need Aaron's book. If you are just a Microsoft Word user and want to make your documents look better and easier to read you also need Aaron's book. It's short, to the point and loaded with practical tips. I highly recommend it!

I bought two copies of this book and received a gift book. This is a beautiful allegory and I found it life changing. Very inspiring and beautifully written.

This book has really blessed me inward and outward. I no longer see myself as I did prior to reading this book. I allow God through the Holy Spirit to lead me to the High Places. Now I have my 10 year old daughter reading the booking and she is getting blessed by it as well.

It is a beautiful story. It addresses issues of racism, interracial marriage, a high school girl's crush..on another girl, a beautiful friendshp all without ever sounding preachy. The writing is crisp, descriptive and succinct.

I loved everything about it. Her selection of words how she put so much thought into such a small book it was wonderful. i couldn't put it down and finished it in 2 days!

As the subtitle notes "An inspirational gathering of thoughts on living a good old age into death" this is a book of quotes from elder on subjects from Good Old Age to The Art of Dying and Death the Great Good. I find its value is simply in talking about death in a positive and not a dreaded manner. Quotes from all walks of life and belief systems.

Helen Nearing's galaxy of quotations from the likes of Ghandi, Freidan, Woolf, Einstein, Wharton, and Lao Tzu (and scintillating many more) on the subject of aging and dying is somewhat like meditating under a summer sky's meteor shower, each new light a brilliant, breath-catcher. With this collection, this "study for eternity" (Nearing quoting Emerson), Nearing restores elements of wonder and mystery to living and dying , rescuing them (and us!) from the pervasive and monotone hellfire school of western religious tradition. Among my many dozens of favorite Nearing choices is this from Hazlitt (Table Talk, 1821) : "To die is only to be as we were before we were born".

This first novel by Robert Bitterli is a great story. The strong female protaginist is something you don't see everyday. Unfortunately the book is filled with errors. Editing shouldn't and doesn't just mean running a spell checker. This author deserves a competent editor. Bravo Mr. Bitterli, I am looking forward to your next try.

I read this book from beginning to end. It started off slow but as the suspense got more and more exciting I could not put the book down. I,m looking forward to Mr bitterlis new book very soon.

At the Federal Courthouse in Washington DC, the "janitor" fired one shot at former President Canfield splattering his skull and brain all over the place. Agent Tom West connects this assassination with the murder of FBI agent Michael Ballard ten years ago. In common is J. Edgar Hoover's fingerprint at the scene of both homicides.

Assisted by Agent Christine Peal, Michael begins to find a link to events started in 1969 with a rare occurrence of FBI and CIA cooperation by concurrent assassinations in Cameroon and DC, but one of the witnesses requiring elimination escaped. As the two Feds begin to uncover a conspiracy that envisions taking over the country, they realize that this is more than a case of revenge. They must first solve the conspiracy that leads to some of America's most powerful leaders before they can capture the "Hoover killer". Either side of the puzzle contains individuals who would prefer to see Agents West and Peal removed officially or preferably dead.

THE HOOVER PRINT is an exciting political thriller based on the concept that history is linear so that a minor, almost unnoticed event beyond an immediate family's awareness, can still lead to major impact years later. The story line is loaded with detail that surprisingly enhances the belief in the non-stop action as genuine. Readers will empathize with the killer and root for the Feds to uncover the truth because the audience will want to know how Hoover is reaching out from the grave years after his death. Fans will desire more thrillers like this one from first time author Robert Bitterli.

Harriet Klausner

I realised about half way through this book that I had read it before (the first thing to really push my recognition buttons was a typically straw man attack on Creationists. I also remembered the technique she used of telling us early that one of her characters fiddled with their glasses when perplexed, and later just saying when they started fiddling). All the plot seems to happen in the last couple of chapters, whereas until that point we're just getting a picture of the main two characters. Our central character, Helen, is a 52 year old woman dealing with the death of her overbearing mother, who may have actually altered the whole course of her daughter's life by, for example, not handing on a potentially vital love letter Helen finds while sorting her mother's things. The issue for Helen is less whether things really would have been different if her mother hadn't have been involved than how much she is to blame for not taking a stand, for being too pliant.

Lively is good, you get to like and respect Helen. A major theme is linking nature to our lives: how do we deal with the fact that we really are just beasts with intelligence? (The conclusion manages to have some hope in this bleak outlook: 'They saw that there is nothing to be done, but that something can be retrieved.') This is the assumption - obviously I deal with it differently to Lively. And I suppose I put a minus after the A because I think her insight, while profound in some areas, doesn't extend to respecting anyone with alternate views. The novel is a bit preachy (in a relatively subtle way - it's not the only concern of the book), and does unapologetically reduce several characters to mere goodies and baddies (eg. Ron Plaget, Helen's mother, Giles Carnaby, Susan Wilmot). She also is pushing a pretty tough barrow: she wants us to feel sympathy for Helen's 49 year old brother, a repressed homosexual who gropes the neighbour's 14 year old, and to utterly condemn, in contrast, anyone in society opposed to homosexuality - including the father of the 14 year old (set up for a fall, of course, an utterly immoral opportunist). The way she tells the story, we are sympathetic, but it is such a contrived 'moral' that makes its point but undermines the universality of the story.

Plotwise, slow moving, sure, but a dynamite finish, with several things all happening at once, rather than conveniently pacing themselves throughout the drama. We reel with the characters with no time to wallow over major events as more major ones rudely jump in. The irony is thick as Helen's younger sister talks on about her daily crisis' assuming that her stick in the mud single older siblings will have had nothing to report - when actually they're going though much more that she probably will never give the chance to hear (shades of some conversations I've had with ' also reminds me of that ably presented scene in 'Pulp Fiction' where Bruce Willis' character, on the run from the mob, has to tread carefully around his girlfriend's potential tantrums about her nails or whatever).

Like I said, she's good - but she should read some Hornby and see it's possible to present characters that differ but are both respectable. It does surprise me when people like Lively or Adam Spencer (JJJ presenter/mathamatician) do just write off anyone who believes that the complexity and beauty of nature suggest there is a God. Not just disagree, but vehemently abuse. Surely somewhere they've come across someone they respect who holds to this idea? Maybe they have but can't put the two together. Christians with half a brain have known and made it clear for ages that some very intelligent people are atheists. How about some atheists with half a brain making it clear that some very intelligent people are theists?

Reading this book broke my heart. And yet, when I finished it I turned back to page one and began again. The characters in this book are so complex and compelling, it was as if they were people who inhabit my day to day life. I recommend this book to anyone wishing to be haunted by perfect fiction.

Passing On was my introduction to Penelope Lively and now I'm looking for her other books to see if they're as good! Reading this novel was a much more pleasurable (and poignant) experience than any plot synopsis I could provide would indicate, so just try to get hold of a copy-and enjoy!