On-the-tape

Small Change is a priceless treasure. If you like a story to read like a long talk with a close friend you will enjoy this conversation with J. Belinda Yandell. If you still believe in random acts of kindness and the power of small wonders, if you can believe in the magic of everyday lives, if you read to feel good, don't miss this book!

Small Change is all about the human spirit and how a speck of ambition coupled with a little courage can make gigantic changes in many lives. Penny Burford didn't win the lottery, didn't have a job, didn't have an eduction and had never even eaten a hamburger because Roy, her overbearing and demanding husband didn't go to fast food places. Penny was the textbook wife to Roy, having and raising his children, buying the groceries on the strict budget Roy allowed her, cooking his meals and cleaning his house, including picking up the pocket change he annoyingly dropped on the dresser daily. Then, one day she dropped a stray nickel into her pocket. Penny Burford and all the lives she touched in her small Georgia community were forever changed that day.
A beautiful book that brings new meaning to "Its not what you have but what you do with it that counts."

This audio book touched my heart and I have a list of friends I want to share it with. How little we know the people we live with everyday and what a shame secrets die with so many. I, too, expect this to be made into a warm Christmas movie. Hope this first publication will lead to more.

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.

If you are a fan of Janette Oke, then you need this book and the others in the series. I have only read this one of the 4 and it ruined it. :) This book is so very powerful, however about the need for family and God. I highly recommend this book.

I am 12 and totally in love with all of Janette Oke's books!As we speak I am reading "Spring's Gentle Promise" and I've cried for joy and sadness throughout this whole book! I can't do anything to make you read it but I would recommend it in a second!

Out of all the 4 books in the Seasons of the heart Series by Janette Oke, I can guarantee that Spring's Gentle Promise holds the PROMISE of an awesome book. I have traveled along with Joshua Jones, the main character of the story, throughout his whole life. Through tragedy and disappointment to happiness and joy. In this last book Josh goes through some really hard times. From the love of his life falling for his best friend, to the death of his best friend. But with the bad comes the good and Josh finds himself a beautiful wife, a loving family and a future as a prosperous farmer. I guess it is like they always say, life is never boring for some because just when his dreams are developing Josh and his new family are struck with a devastating blow, a drought that nearly puts them on the streets. All they can do is trust in God to get them through. In conclusion, I would just like to say that you must read this book! Heck! Read the whole series, they are all fantastic books! Get ready to laugh and cry and pick up this heart warming adventure!

no hype. i couldn't stop laughing as i was reading this. and i mean laughing out loud. in a cafe. with everyone staring at me. but i didn't care. and i couldn't help it if i did. it's just too hilarious.

There is at least one author who may remind you of Stephen Leacock, namely Garrison Keillor of Lake Wobegon fame, but Leacock should be recognized as the ultimate master of quaint, bucolic humor. Leacock, who died in 1944, became arguably the most prominent Canadian humorist of his day (and probably of all time). What is ironic about that claim is that Leacock worked for most of his life as a professor of economics. We do not usually equate economics with humor, preferring to think of that profession as one of bow ties and supply and demand charts. Throw that presumption out the window and pick up a copy of "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town," Leacock's best known work available through the New Canadian Library series.

For me, one of the funniest sections of the book was the introduction written by Leacock, where he gives you some background about himself and his profession. This short piece of writing quickly gives you an idea of the type of humor you will find in the actual sketches: a very sly, very quiet and clever type of humor that often takes a while to sink in. Leacock does not rely on rim shot jokes or manic posturing in his writings. Instead, he creates the fictional Canadian town of Mariposa and populates it with small town archetypes that are wonders to behold.

All of the characters are hilarious in their own way: Mr. Smith, the proprietor of the local hotel and bar, full of schemes to earn money while trying to get his liquor license back. Then there is Jefferson Thorpe, the barber involved in financial schemes that may put him on the level of the Morgans and the Rockefellers. The Reverend Mr. Drone presides over the local Church of England in Mariposa, a man who reads Greek as easy as can be but laments his lack of knowledge about logarithms and balancing the financial books of the church. Peter Pupkin, the teller at the local bank, has a secret he wants no one to know about, but which eventually comes out while he is courting the daughter of the town judge. All of these characters, and several others, interact throughout the sketches.

Leacock has the ability to turn a story, to make it take a crazy, unexpected twist even when you are looking for such a maneuver. That he accomplishes this in stories that rarely run longer than twenty pages is certainly a sign of great talent. By the time you reach the end of the book, you know these people as though you lived in the town yourself, and you know what makes them tick.

Despite all of the crazy antics in Mariposa, Leacock never lets the reader lose sight of the fact that these are basically good people living good lives. There seems to be a lot of feeling for the citizens of Mariposa on the part of Leacock, which comes to a head in the final sketch in the collection, "L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa," where he recounts traveling back to the town after being away for years, with all of the attendant emotions that brings as recognizable landmarks come into view and the traveler realizes that his little town is the same as when he left it years before.

I suspect there is a historical importance to "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town." These writings first appeared in 1912, a time when many people living in the bigger Canadian cities still remembered life in a small town. In addition to the humorous aspects of the book, the author includes many descriptive passages concerning the atmosphere and layout of Mariposa, something instantly recognizable to anyone who grew up in such a place. Nostalgia for the simpler life of the small town probably played a significant role in the book's success.

I look forward to reading more Stephen Leacock. While much of the humor in the book is not belly laugh funny, it does provide one with a deep satisfaction of reading clever humor from an author who knows how to tickle the funny bone. You do not need to be Canadian to enjoy this wonderful book.

Perhaps the finest comment about Stephen Leacock in the last half century is that "he is a
Will Rogers for the 90's."

Rogers, of course, is one of the most beloved of American humorists -- he was killed in
1935 when his plane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. Leacock died on March 28, 1944.
Like Rogers, he had been Canada's favorite humorist for decades.

Sunshine Sketches is about Orillia, Ontario, Canada, where Leacock had his summer home
on Brewery Bay (he once wrote, "I have known that name, the old Brewery Bay, to make
people feel thirsty by correspondence as far away as Nevada.") His home is now maintained
as a historic site by the town of Orillia. I lived there for almost 30 years, and the people of Orillia are still much the same as Leacock portrayed them in 1912.

These stories about various personalities in town were printed in the local newspaper in the
1910 - 1912 era, before being compiled into this book which established Leacock's literary
fame. The people portrayed really lived, though some are composites; the events are of a
kindly humorist looking at the foibles of small town life. Once they came out in book form
and soared to national popularity, everyone in town figured the rest of the country was
laughing at them because of Leacock's book and he was royally hated in Orillia to the end
of his life.

Gradually, and this took decades, Orillians came to recognize that genius had walked
amongst them for several decades. (It's hard to recognize genius when your own ego is so
inflated.) Orillia now awards the annual "Leacock Medal for Humor" -- Canada's top literary
prize for the best book of humour for the preceding year.

Leacock died when I was six, but I did know his son, who still lived in town. I delivered
papers to the editor of the "Newspacket," Leacock's name for the Orillia Packet and Times
(where I worked) and the rival Newsletter. The Packet had the same editor in the 1940's as
when Leacock wrote about him in 1910.

But the book is more than Orillia; it is a wonderfully kind and humorous description of life in
many small towns. The American artist Norman Rockwell painted the same kinds of scenes;
it is the type of idyllic urban life so many of us keep longing to find again in our hectic
urban world.

Leacock realized the book was universal in its description of small towns, and in the preface
he wrote "Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of
them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square
streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels, and everywhere the
sunshine of the land of hope."

True enough, which gives this book continuing appeal nearly a century after it was written.
All great writing is about topics you know, and as a longtime resident Leacock knew Orillia
well. As for Leacock himself, he wrote, "I was born at Swanmoor, Hants., England, on Dec.
30, 1869. I am not aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at the
time, but should think it extremely likely."

He says of his education, "I survived until I took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
1903. The meaning of this degree is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last
time in his life, and is pronounced completely full. After this, no new ideas can be imparted
to him."

In reviewing Charles Dickens' works in 1934, Leacock wrote what could well be his own
epitaph: "Transitory popularity is not proof of genius. But permanent popularity is." The fact
his writings are still current illustrates the nature of his writing.

In contrast to the sometimes sardonic humor of modern times, Sunshine Sketches reflects
Leacock's idea that "the essence of humor is human kindness." Or, in the same vein, "Humor
may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic
expression thereof."

Granted, this book is not what he recognized to have widespread appeal to modern readers.
In his own words, "There are only two subjects that appeal nowadays to the general public,
murder and sex; and, for people of culture, sex-murder." Yet, anyone reading this will
remember scenes from it for much longer than anything from a murder mystery.

In today's world, where newspapers almost daily track Prime Minister Tony Blair's dash to
the political right, Leacock wrote, "Socialism won't work except in Heaven where they don't
need it and in Hell where they already have it."

He described his own home as follows, "I have a large country house -- a sort of farm
which I carry on as a hobby . . . . Ten years ago the deficit on my farm was about a
hundred dollars; but by well-designed capital expenditure and by greater attention to
details, I have got it into the thousands." Sounds familiar to today's farm policies ?

It's what I mean by this being a timeless work.

Leacock himself noted, when talking about good literature, "Personally, I would sooner have
written 'Alice in Wonderland' than the whole of the 'Encyclopedia Britannica'." This is his
'Alice' and it well deserves to be favorably compared to Lewis Carroll's work.

By all measures, it is still the finest Canadian book ever written.

Mary Kay Mueller does an amazing job of not only inspiring but empowering you to make life altering positive changes in your life. In her book, "Taking Care of Me: The Habits of Happiness," Mary Kay compiles what all the great inspirational leaders have said and adds to it her own experience and wisdom. In addition, she provides you with easy to follow tools for actually bringing her positive, and empowering messages into a reality in your own personal life. She offers more than inspiration but rather shows you how to be more aware of yourself and your life at the present momoent. Using her FGH formula I was taught how to make GENUINE, lasting improvements in my own life. She does this all with a REAL, simple and DIRECT approach that is easy to follow. I highly recommend that you buy more than one, because you will want to share this amazing book with everyone you know!!!!

I heard Mary Kay Mueller at a speaking engagement and immediately purchased her book. It has truly changed my life. Her thoughts on gratitude make me realize just how lucky I am. She doesn't preach to you, she empowers you! I recommend this to everyone! Even if you think you're happy, this is a great tool to be even happier! Her suggestions are realistic, you can increase your level of happiness overnight with as little as 2-5 minutes a day! Wonderful!!

I am so pleased to recommend this book! I have had the opportunity to use it as a reference for women who are taking care of everyone but themselves. There are so many self-help books on the market, but few that reach the caliber of this book. The message is helpful, practical and useful! Mary Kay has a great sense of humor that cushions the hard lessons that many women need to learn. She speaks from her heart and from her experiences and all of us would benefit from spending a few hours with Taking Care of Me. Thank you Mary Kay!

Karen Armstrong's first memoir, Through the Narrow Gate, ended not long after she acted upon her decision to leave the convent where, after seven years, she had become a skeptical nun. The Spiral Staircase pick up her intellectual and religious questing and brings her devoted readers up to date on the result of her explorations into the nature of God and his/her/? place in our world and lives.
Armstrong garnered many degrees and awards as she pursued a solitary, scholarly life. While she still harbors bitter feelings about how she was treated (and NOT treated, for her epilepsy) within the convent, her life since she left the cloister has been devoted to a style of intellectual live that bears some deep similarity to the routines followed in religious orders - and the irony of this similarity does not escape her. On her lifelong quest, she found herself straying far from orthodox Christianity, delving into the teachings of both Buddhism and Islam - and she has written books on both subjects.
Here's the interesting thing: Lots of modern authors who write memoirs focus with near obsession on their illnesses, disabilities, eating disorders, depression, etc. Armstrong discusses all these issues, too, but while other memorists build them up, Armstrong seems to want to minimize them. What interests her are things she is capable of, not those she is incapable of, and her book's impact is all the richer for her minimalist approach.
This intensely personal book is also an exceedingly solitary book. The only relationship that seems to matter for Karen Armstrong is her relationship with God, a being who, in her view, probably does not exist.
This doesn't stop her from ultimately deciding (with characteristic pragmatism and without retreating from her skepticism), that leading a religious life is worth it, because "Faith is not about belief but about practice...The laws of religion are true because they are life-enhancing."
That's good enough for me.

If you have trouble believing in God, this may be the book for you. Especially if you find Sunday School depictions a bit off-putting. Possibly for the first time, Miss Armstrong reveals how she lost faith and then found it in a new and better form. Her insights are both bold and unavoidable. Her journey, from feeling isolated and resigned, to a confident and articulate advocate is remarkable.

Karen Armstrong's book could be read and analyzed as a text itself. At first the text seems a bit dry. Armstrong is, after all, a true British lady. The style reminds me of other British-empire women, such as Jill Ker Conway. It's a book that demands and rewards close reading, preferably repeated readings over time.

I see Spiral Staircase first as a series of ironies. Armstrong clearly was harmed by her stifling convent, but her post-convent encounters with medical and academic systems seem remarkably similar. Her convent superiors believed her "fits" were emotionally based, but so did a series of psychiatrists and physicians.

In her first book, Through the Narrow Gate, and again here, Armstrong remembers the time her superior ordered her to practice using a sewing machine without a needle -- a pointless exercise to instill obedience. Yet at Oxford, Armstrong invested three years writing a thesis that would be failed by a prejudiced but powerful examiner. There were no safeguards in the system to prevent a student from embarking on a topic that would be judged inadequate, and even a free-thinking dame valued maintaining the Oxford tradition over righting an injustice.

A final irony is that Armstrong's final career was probably made possible by her earlier series of "wrong" choices. Her first book and her experience as a nun probably gave her the "platform" that publishers require for nonfiction.

And the experience of old-fashioned convents seems to have brought about many benefits, judging by the success of many ex-nuns. One nun I knew many years ago (who claimed her order was far more enlightened!) pointed out that novitiate training and discipline create a confident, poised woman. Even if she abandons her order and her religion, she's ready to run anything from a convent kitchen to a Fortune 50 corporation.

Armstrong's book also illustrates a career path that's far more typical than many career counselors would admit. Her spiral path, which I call a "winding road" in my own articles, shows how serendipity often shapes careers. Armstrong took risks and accepted jobs that developed her skills and created a network. She sees convent, academia, teaching, and television as failures, yet each contributed a piece to her ultimate career mosaic.

And parallel to her career quest, she's exploring new ways to think about religion. An epileptic child benefits from religion without beliefs. She discovers Judaism and Islam. Don't miss her quote on pages 270-271: "I have discovered the religious quest is not about discovering 'the truth' or 'the meaning of life' but about living as intensely as possible here and now."

You can respond with an "Amen!" or "You bet!" Either would fit the spirit of this thoughtful, worthwhile book.

This is the first Blandings Castle novel, and the first novel in what we now think as the true P.G. Wodehouse style. For the first time, the interplay between absent-minded peers, quick-to-anger relatives and friends, and those amazing good-natured yet good-for-nothing younger sons come together in a comic dance of quick assumptions, identity switches, flirts with embarrassment, and, oh yes, love.

If Wodehouse wasn't so widely admired by the critics, I would have to claim him as a guilty pleasure. Although I can quote style and form with the best of them, the real truth is that I read Wodehouse because he amuses. In Wodehouse's hands, the sly wink equals the over-the-top exaggeration, and only one will work in the place that he puts it.

I tried to slow my reading speed down on this book, to gain an understanding of the flow and the way the language worked. I failed miserably--before I realized it, I was caught up once again in the action of the story and I wasn't observing but enjoying. I'm thinking that to truly study a novel, I am going to have to force myself to retype it.

If your acquaintance with the wonderful world of Wodehouse begins and ends with Jeeves and that bit of a thick-o, Bertram Wilburforce W. then it's high time you came to Blandings Castle to meet Lord Emsworth and his idiot son Freddie,what?And "something fresh" is exactly where you'd want to start.Structured like a detective or spy novel and woven ever so tightly,it leaves you wondering....could all this bally intrigue be about something so incredibly silly? (and I'm far and away from meaning silly as an insult).Lighthearted and romantic without ever being lightweight, beautifully written and zanily paced, you'll want to spend a holiday as a guest at Blandings castle as soon as possible.Go ahead,satisfy your anglophilic urges...read some Wodehouse!

Something Fresh is the first book of the Blandings Castle series, and in my opinion, the best. It is about a person named Lord Emsworth who accidentally steals a millionaire's scarab. The millionaire also happens to be his son's future father-in-law. The millionaire hires a man to find it, while the man's friend also gets information on the scarab. So both try to steal, while the Lord Emsworth's secretary, not knowing that it is the millionaire's, tries to prevent them from recovering the scarab. The encounters between the man,his girl friend, and the secretary will keep you laughing. Not only I, but also other people, who have read this book after I recommended it, share the view that Something Fresh is an extraordinary book. Get your hands on this book as fast as you can, and soon you will be famished for more books by P.G. Wodehouse. It will, and I am totally serious here, make you laugh until you have laughed all the laughs you can laugh, and cried all the tears you can cry. Hope you enjoy!!!! Cheers!!!!! : )

This title is good enough by itself but I just thought I'd point out that it also comes with an "Enhanced CD with Video Footage". This consists of an approx. 130mb 5.31 minute MPEG file. This mpeg shows selected highlights from both cds. Considering a cd can hold 650mb its a bit disappointing they didnt use the whole cd. Having watched it I only wish Alien Voices would now release a DVD of this, I'm sure it would sell !!!

Spock Vs Q

Former science officer of the USS Enterprise travels back in time via the Guardian of Forever to warn Earth of a..
Suddenly, Q arrives and tells Spock not to tell the people that an asteroid the size of Montana is going to hit Earth. Spock fools Q to tell the people about the asteroid rather than him. Spock and Q plays a little game with poems. Q pushes the asteroid away from Earth and Spock and Q go out for dinner.

The Sequel

This is pure funny stuff. Spock and Q have returned after dinner to finish their discussion. When Q shakes Spock's hand, something strange happens. Q begins to act like Spcok, and Spock acts like Q. This is the one chance to hear Spock laughing like a maniac and making jokes ala Q.
Any Star Trek fan will like this!

Ok Q was not quite himself. I didn't hear "omnipotence" in his character but listening to this set is refreshing and enjoyable. Hearing Spock laugh like a ding dong is great. Alien Voices is the best thing to happen in entertainment today.

I would have to agree with many of the other reviewers in stating that this is one of the better Bernard Samson books. It is a good follow up and great end to this series. He pulled off a book that has a good deal of suspense through out. There is also a lot of human drama outside of the spy vs. spy game. If you are into espionage books this is a great set to send time with.

To really enjoy any of the nine books in the three triologies,
Berlin Game, Mexico Set, and London Match- Spy Hook, Spy Line, and Spy Sinker - Faith, Hope, and Charity one should begin with Deighton's Winter. This books traces the story of the German family named Winter from New Years, 1900 through the close of the Second World War and in the process introduces most of the principal characters that appear in the subsequent trilogies. I have recently reread the ten books, starting with Winter and my enjoyment was multiplied many times over the first readings.

Sinker is the sixth book in Deighton's series starring the middle aged and "past it" British spy Bernard Samson. However, this book is different from the other five in that it is written in the third person rather than the first. This allows the reader a greater insight into the doings of other members of the cast, particularly Brett, and makes us realise how Bernard has been used as a pawn in the bigger picture. Previously we were encouraged to believe that Bernard knew everything, that he was the professional in this game played out by amateurs behind their desks in London.

Sinker lets us into the world of Fiona, Bernard's estranged wife who defected to the other side and works for the Stasi in East Berlin. Deighton examines Fiona's life and her fears thoughtfully and realistically, but once again showing how she too is little more than a pawn in what is and also has been a man's game based on old promises, betrayal and the old school tie system.

Unlike many other spy mystery authors, Deighton ensures that the characters are the most important and well developed part of the book. We know their loves and their innermost thoughts, but we are also left with the feeling that we do not quite know everything. It is this air of mystery which keeps the reader hooked until the dramatic conclusion of this book.

Overall, Sinker is essential reading but for absolute enjoyment should be read in conjunction with the preceding five books and the following trilogy.

This excellent Greenleaf novel opens with Tanner recovering from a gunshot wound in a hospital. He meets a young woman there who has many more problems than himself. She gets him back into "life". But later she is found murdered. Tanner has made promises to her and intends to carry them out. Villains had better beware. Great stuff!

Strawberry Sunday, by Stephen Greenleaf, was nominated for an Edgar Award, 2000 -- and reading it, it's not difficult to see why. This is a mystery novel with a social conscience and a wry sense of wit. It begins with the hero, P.I. John Marshall Tanner in a hospital recovering from a gut shot and mourning the death of his close (cop) friend Charley Sleet, but most of the action takes place in the California Salinas agricultural community. Tanner has resolved to find out who murdered Rita Lombardi, a fellow hospital patient who wants to better the life of farm workers.

There are lots of red herrings, wonderful characters, and witty and often hilarious dialogues with them (and with himself). Tanner often reaches wrong conclusions and gets plenty of egg on his face, but in the end he prevails; he's a tough guy with loads of grace. Strawberry Sunday is a punchy, funny, touching novel. Read it.

As a long time fan of Greenleaf and Marsh Tanner, I thoroughly enjoyed Strawberry Sunday. I love books that inform and challenge me as well as entertain, and can always count on this author to accomplish that.

A rumor has been circulating that Greenleaf planned to retire the Tanner series, and with the last book seemed to have done so, in a most excruciating way. With this book, Marsh has been returned to me and I can imagine him, one of the rare really good people, continuing to do what he does best.