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The best book I read in a long time. Captain Underpants fights off the talking toilets with weggy power but it doesn't work. IF you read the first caption underpants wait until you read this one. More action,more laughs,more flip-o-ramas.This book is good because it`s funny and has lots of action in it, for example when the principal turn in to captain under pants so read this book.

My 7-year-old son and I read this together and laughed all the way through. Dav Pilkey uses his goofy imagination to write a very entertaining book for all ages. The best part is when the boys rearrange the letters on the sign to say something utterly silly (they do this in every book). George and Harold's ideas seem fairly innocent at first but cause dilemmas that even Captain Underpants can't resolve. Instead of panicking, George and Harold come up with zany ideas that actually work and save the day, plus more! This book will get any reluctant reader begging for the next Captain Underpants adventure. Keep 'em coming, Dav!

George& Harold are back in an epic challenge to stop evil talking tiolets destroy earth.this book is so funny with lots of adventure.
I like it and so do the kids at school.

I just finished reading this to my 3 sons, ages 4, 6, and 8 and the four of us couldn't stop laughing. It's a wonderfully silly story. Even the flip pages were really well done. (I expected them to be lame.) As soon as the boys heard that there was another adventure of Captain Underpants on the way, I was entreated to get it. Definitely. I bought this book because the title was different and because we've read all of the Dragon books and Hallo-weiner and loved them all. We were NOT disappointed.

I thought this book was terrific, especially for young children. I laughed the entire way through the book. I think the story line, the terms and the text that were presented in this child's book make children want to read. It presented innocent fun. The idea of the principal doing things at a child's command, a principal running around in his underwear, wedgie power, and all of the tricks kids wish they could get away with doing, interest children. There isn't anything better than for children to get away with adventures like Harold and George pulled. Pulling jokes on adults, especially adults in powerful positions, such as a principal or parent, fascinates children. The idea of pulling a prank on the football team, someone with more power, that has the ability to destroy them, and getting away with it is an outrageous idea and something we all wish we could do to someone. Successfully completing an adventure like Harold and George makes them the most powerful and children all want that sense of being in control. The book gives instances of mischievous situations children would love to try if they could only hypnotize adults with a "Hypno-Ring for $2.99." The price of $2.99 makes it realistic from a child's perspective because most children could afford to order an item at that cost. The flip-o-rama's were original and funny. Children have the ability to add their own silliness to the story. As silly as George and Harold were, the book sent the message that children need to be responsible and watch out for the safety of others while they are engaged in pulling pranks. George and Harold followed Mr. Krupp., making sure no one was injured while they were pulling their pranks. I absolutely love "The Adventures of Captain Underpants."

I thought this is a funny book.This book is funny
because principal krump turns in captinunderpants it is the funniest book I'veever read because mr. krump ran in
the street with his underpants.

the seating is in a school In the presant day. The characters are George, and Harold Dr. Diapers,and Mr.Krump
A.K.A. captin Underpants.My favorite character is Harold because he is the one that invented Captin Underpants

I recommend it to the people that like to read books like people that are 7 years old to 13 years old that like to read funny stories.

"That's how come I quick hided the address book ..."
"I dialed the number speedy quick. It ringed and ringed."
"I runned right to the end of that hugie thing."

Those are some samples of the "English" your child will be exposed to when reading this particular book. Hey, there's nothing wrong with occasionally using incorrect English for stylistic reasons, but this is just crazy. Other series aimed at the same market don't read like this.

Am I missing something here? These books are targeted at 1st-3rd graders, readers just coming out of Dr. Seuss and the like. These fairly new readers are still building vocabulary and learning the nuances of English grammar by osmosis, that is, by repeated exposure to correct English. Letting them read this stuff won't help that process at all. In fact, it will get in the way.

I help out at my son's school library, and I cringe whenever a student (usually one of our weaker readers) checks out a Junie B. Jones book. Why? Because I truly believe that these books CONFUSE young readers. They don't realize that Barbara Park makes Junie B. use poor English to show how young and ignorant she is. A fair number of them don't even catch that Junie B. isn't using proper English.

Remember Steve Martin's old joke about messing up a kid by speaking incorrectly to him/her? On the first day of school, the child says, "May I mambo dogface to the banana patch?" With these books, that joke becomes less funny. It's hard enough to pick up the language without bad examples like this. Frankly, this is the educational equivalent of handing out cigarettes on the schoolyard.

With so many other, better choices out there - The Magic Tree House, The Bailey School Kids, etc., I see no reason to fill your kids' heads with this pablum.

I give this book 2 stars only because the storyline is amusing. If you want to take the time to edit the books as you read them aloud, putting them into correct English (as my son's kindergarten teachers do), then you might have some use for this book. Otherwise, avoid this entire series.

Not recommended.

As the mother of two girls (13 & 8) I have read every Junie B. Jones book there is. They are so funny I find myself quoting them. Even my teenager still enjoys reading these books. Junie B. Jones is definitely a staple when it comes to children's books.

I am eight years old. When I was in second grade I read this book with my friends. We thought it was a great book. I was never a flower girl but this book made me feel like one. It was fun to read. I think that everyone should read it. I thought that it was the greatest book.

This interseting text provides a facinating insight into the mind of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel through out his campaigns in the Second World War. This detaled display of real manuscripts written by the great soldier shows his ambitious, zealous, and sometimes dashing style in which he upset Allied commanders time and time again with minimal forces and limited supplys. For any person who is intrigued by the art of war or has a deep interest in history, this book will captivate until the last page has been turned.

This book is an excellent account of Rommel, his leadership and his tactics.

Rarely do you get the ability to go into the mind of a commander at war. Usually those writings that come out are clouded by the overall victory or defeat. Rommel's early death prevented that. His notes allow you get into what he was thinking, often on the days of the battles. What impact does the 'fog of war' have on troops and units when the shooting starts? How do you get the enemy to react to you? This book is a treasure indeed.

The lessons he learned apply today as well. I found his reviews of the battles; actually explained much of what occurred in the Persian Gulf War. The Allies may have read this book; I feel the Iraqi's may not have. Those who fight in next war in the desert will face similar constraints.

Students of maneuver warfare, armor officers or anyone who may have to do battle in the desert will get much from this book.

Some books you read and discard. This is a keeper in my library.

Very rarely do you ever get such a precise account of a battle from a first person perspective much less a war. I have always loved Rommel ahead of any other commander, not only his genius, but all so his honour, love of family, energy, and courage. I was especially happy to get a glimpse at his final days in great detail; my respect for him has only grown. Although I wish there was a book that was only his life beyond the battle details I would definitly recommend this to anyone who can get through the description of battles and such (I want to join the military so this is an interest to me)

In his autobiography, October Sky, Homer H. Hickam, Jr. uses a wide variety of literary elements to describe the forces that have shaped his identity. The surrounding environment, people he was around, and events of his life were three main forces that developed the fourteen-year-old Rocket Boy into a 38-year-old NASA engineer. Hickam's development of the setting, characters, conflicts, and resolution exposes worlds of detail about the extensive process in which his identity was carefully molded together.
Hickam was born and raised in Coalwood, West Virginia in the mid-1900s, used as the setting and the first identity-shaping force for the novel. Coalwood, home to over two thousand residents, was built for the sole purpose of extracting the millions of tons of rich bituminous coal that lay beneath it. Similar to the town's mineworkers, the white houses of Coalwood, owned by the coal company, constantly get tinted gray from blowing coal dust. While the town plunges further into the darkness of disappearance, the village parents strive to make sure that their children get out of Coalwood forever. And as the age of space exploration continues, Hickam quickly becomes intrigued by the news of both successes and failures of satellite launches. With the Russian Sputnik satellite already in space and the American scientists at Cape Canaveral struggling to have a successful satellite launch, Hickam dreamed of journeying to the moon. With the inspiration of Dr. Wernher von Braun and the help of the town citizens, Hickam and his team of Rocket Boys prepare to launch themselves out of the dying town of Coalwood through their success of rocketry.
Hickam used characterization to illustrate several significant people who greatly influenced his character including Elsie Hickam, Miss Riley, and the Rocket Boys. Elsie, his mother, a strong supporter of Sonny from the start, was determined to send him out of Coalwood and away from the dangers of mining. As the Rocket Boys continued their research, Elsie provided equipment such as pots, spoons, and even a water heater. Miss Riley, the 11th grade chemistry teacher at Big Creek High School, encouraged Hickam to continue his work with rocket science, providing him with knowledge of how different substances react with one another. She and Miss Bryson, the school librarian, ordered Principles of Guided Missile Design just for Sonny. The Rocket Boys, consisting of Billy, O'Dell, Quentin, Roy Lee, Sherman, and Sonny each had their own job as a member of the BCMA, or Big Creek Missile Agency. Billy, the runner, kept his eye out for the location of the rocket and went chasing in pursuit of it once the rocket landed. O'Dell and Roy Lee, the transporters, provided transportation to and from Cape Coalwood, the Rocket Boys' launch site. Quentin, the scientist, decided how to calculate the height of the rocket and eventually used a formula to do so. Sherman, the writer, scribbled down notes about the flight of each rocket. Sonny, the launcher and man in charge, ignited the rocket and took care of rocket production. With the encouragement and aid of the people near him, Hickam became a strong-minded individual capable of achieving anything.
Hickam's uniqueness wasn't displayed by the conflicts or events that he faced, but by the way he resolved them. Three major situations that changed Sonny forever were criticism and embarrassment, Mr. Bykovski's death, and learning algebra. At first when the BCMA started to launch rockets up on mountains near the mine, the rockets only flew up several feet. After consideration, they moved their launching to an abandoned slack dump far away from Coalwood. While embarrassed by how high their rockets could fly, the Rocket Boys kept on working harder and harder to accomplish their goal of a missile soaring miles high. Mr. Bykovski, a machinist-welder, built the actual rockets for the boys until he was fired and transferred to coal loading for doing so. The night that the mine ventilation fans were struck by lightning and a bump occurred near the face of the mine, Mr. Bykovski died in the mine. This was not uncommon, for men died in the mine quite frequently, forcing their families to leave their lives in Coalwood behind. Although Sonny felt terrible for the death of Mr. Bykovski, he knew that he had to keep moving on for Mr. Bykovski if not for everyone else cheering him on. Sonny continued with his love for rocket building and to make the missiles even better, he wanted to learn algebra. After persistently begging Mr. Turner, the school principal, for an algebra class and finally getting the chance to learn algebra, he was just as quickly shut out of the class when there was 1 extra student who signed up for the course and he turned out to be the one with the lowest grades. However, Sonny accepted it and he decided to learn algebra on his own by reading his father's algebra book. The steps Sonny has taken to resolve the conflicts in his life prove him to be a relentless, strong, and responsible person.
October Sky is a worthwhile read that spreads hope and inspiration to everyone. While it takes place in a town of decease and demise, it shows that anyone can do anything they set their mind to. Hickam wonderfully uses literary elements to express multiple events that happened in a historical town with a variety of citizens all trying to successfully get their children out of Coalwood. He combines all of these influences to display how his own identity has been patiently formed into the man he is today. At last, Hickam has found his true identity as a NASA engineer where he can continue to journey into the mysteries lying in outer space.

For the record, I am writing this September 15, the first day Rocket Boys is available from Amazon or any bookstore. At this moment, the book's "Amazon.com Sales Rank" is 45,793. Just wait.

I was heading out of town last week for two long business travel days when a bookseller friend handed me an advance reading copy of Rocket Boys and said, "Read this and tell me what you think."

I was so moved by the book, I could not put it down. It is a classic coming-of-age tale. A sweet, poignant, inspirational tale that is good on so many, many levels. Don't get me wrong: this is no gooey memoir. It is a gritty, obviously honest and emotional story with complex characters. It is at times gripping, sad and outrageously funny. It is one of those rare books that can be read by parents and their high school-aged children with deep relevance - and inspiration - for both.

And while I could go on and on about the many facets of the book I enjoyed, I found myself most impressed by the author's ability to engage me in a story in which high school math and science play pivotal roles. While Sonny is no math genius like, say, Will Hunting, he is passionate about his quest for the mathematical knowledge that will help him break free of his coal mining hometown's gravitational pull.

This book will be required reading one day in high schools everywhere. Not only for its literary quality, but for the way in which it will surely inspire future generations of Sonny Hickams to realize winning can be found other places than on the football field; that even if your background and family seems to be overbearing burdens, you can still aim high...and soar.

One day my class teacher told us we would all be picking a book, reading it, and writing a critique for it. Then she told us we would be placing it on the internet. I wasn't too thrilled about any of this. This book turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be. Rocket Boys, by Homer H. Hickam was written beautifly, tellling the story of a few young boys trying to reach a common goal. Homer "Sonny" Hickam Jr. starts out as a freshman in highschool trying to find a way with the ladies, especially Dorthy, and battling the jocks, one being his brother, for popularity. Sonny takes a sudden intrust in Sputnik. This is what gets him started on his incredibly passoinate love for rockets. His father is a miner and is always gone, as where his mother is incredibly supporting to whatever he does as long as he "doesn't blow himself up." Miss Rilly was another very supporting person in Sonny's life. She is the one that provides the "fuel" for Sonny's dream when she gives him a book on rocketry and encourages him to enter the science fair. I loved how the story is so vivid and colorful, how you can see the excitement, anger, fear, and love that the character expresses. This story also shows you that you have to keep trying to get what you want, and that not everything comes easily, but if you work hard for it, it can be very rewarding. Sonny learns this when he decides to enter the county science fair. It ends up being incredibly rewarding, and surprising to him. He ends up in the national science fair and returns home with a medal. Sonny eventually ends up working for NASA and accomplishing his dream. I loved this book because it was what really happened to him and it shows. He made a lot of really great frinds along the way, whether in the mine workshop or just some "different" people at school. I give this book five stars and would read it again anyday!

They say the school children aren't taught much about Pearl Harbor and the great battles of World War II anymore and I wonder why. The generation of Americans that fought for all Americans is fast disappearing. Beore that happens books like Flags of our Fathers should be required reading for one of the high school history courses to educate the kids about the sacrifices made by 17-20 yr old boys in 1945. I was16 at the time yet I did not understand how vital the battle of Iwo Jima was to the victory over Japan; of how determined the Niponese soldiers were to fight to the death for the glory of their emperor; how brave our boys were to face the onslaught of all the guns and bullets thrown at them even as they stepped off the landing ships thru the ocean water turned red by the Marines blood. No wonder the few survivors did not want to talk about the night mares they endured for years after returning home. This book along with other stories of WW II should be read by all of us in memory of each man and woman who answered their country's call to defend our lives and the way we chose to live it. Otherwise we might be speaking Japanese or German today.

Born in 1974, I can hardly claim to have experienced the terror and patriotism that surrounded WWII. By all accounts, the picture of the flag raising on Mount Suribachi has always existed for me. In ever history book through school, the six men hoisting the American flag on a makeshift pole atop this sawed-off "mountain" was printed as the epitome of American valor. Little was mentioned about the people or the event that surrounded this monumental photograph. Now, thankfully, we know.

This book is an absolute must-read. At once a biography of each of these six brave men, a history book, a war novel, and a tale of struggle, this book should find its way onto the bookshelf of every American. The lives of these men before, during, and after the battle of Iwo Jima is enough to fill you with great sadness and immense patriotic pride simultaneously.

This book is as relevant today as it could have been had it been published 55 years ago. While it is quite usual to hear words like honor, courage, and commitment strewn about by talking heads that pervade our society and media, it is rare to see these demonstrated by actual human beings. The stories of these men will show that that even under great strain the human spirit can thrive, and that occaisionally our heroes can be taken at face value.

However, as Bradley points out, these men were not heroes for raising that flag on Mount Suribachi. They, like every other American boy who set foot on foreign soil for God and country half a century ago, were heroes for the simple act of being there and doing the best they could.

Buy this book.

My father ran away from home when he was 17, lied about his age, and joined the Marines. He was standing guard duty on the Panama Canal when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He shipped out almost immediately for the South Pacific as part of the First Marine Division. He served on Guadalcanal and Bougainville. That is almost the entire extent of my knowledge of my father's World War II experiences. Although I lived with him until I went away to college, he just didn't talk about it. Reading this book by James Bradley helped me to understand that I am not alone in this experience.

Our fathers' generation fought a war without daily body counts on the evening news, without "embedded" journalists, and without carping from the home front about why they shouldn't be there. They fought it quietly and stoically. They won their war, and the survivors came home to get back to the business of being human. This is a great book with many lessons for a country facing a war against terrorism. May God grant that we fight it as effectively, successfully, and heroically as our fathers' generation fought their war.

This is the first book in M.C. Beaton's series of cozies featuring Agatha Raisin. Agatha is a laugh-out-loud mix of vulnerability and tough-as-nails self-made business woman, who sells her London public relations business and fulfills a life-long dream by buying a cottage in the Cotswolds village of Carsely and taking early retirement. Eager to make an impact on her fellow villagers, she enters the village quiche competition, after wining and dining the judge. Agatha's detective adventures begin when she loses the competition and the judge dies the next day of cowbane poisoning from eating her quiche. Of course, it wasn't really Agatha's quiche. She can't cook at all, and bought the quiche from a famous London quiche maker, and entered it in the competition as her own. Naturally, our Agatha's cheating is exposed almost immediately, and she is no longer a suspect. She is, however, bored to tears by retirement, and sets out to find the murderer. Readers are introduced to series regulars detective Bill Wong, former employee Roy Silver, the vicar's wife Mrs. Bloxby. We are also introduced to handsome retired colonel James Lacey, who moves next door to Agatha towards the end of this story. James's early impressions of Agatha walking by mumbling to herself and her reaction to this good-looking new neighbor are terrifically funny. This fifty-something heroine is a hoot! The mystery is well-written, with a solid, traditional resolution. If you love Agatha Christie, you'll love Beaton's Agatha Raisin! I suggest you collect the entire series all at once and read them in order....because you won't be able to wait to get to the next book!

This is the first of the Agatha Raisin series. I had never read any in this series before. I have read one of her Hamish Macbeth mysteries. I truly enjoyed this book. I will be reading many more Agatha Raisin books. She is a grumpy character in the beginning of the book but as time goes on, she mellows (not lots). I like the characters she interacts with. I usually don't enjoy British cozies as I tend to prefer books set in America. But I read this for an e-mail mystery discussion I am in and really enjoyed it.

Agatha Raisin retires from her PR firm she has sold. She moves to the Cotswolds -- the dream of her life. Quickly she finds herself bored and tries to get the village to notice her. There is a death and then when she starts asking questions, she ends up getting into a lot of trouble. I also enjoyed Detective Bill Wong and her friend and ex-employee Roy. They liven up the story. James Lacey that comes into the story near the end appears to liven things up as well.

I believe there are 9-10 others in this series. Can't wait to read another!

Agatha Raisin, an aggressive businesswoman retires from running a public relations firm and moves to Carsely, a lovely village in the Cotswolds. Agatha is in her fifties, and has always thought that living in a beautiful thatched cottage would be a dream come true.

Because she has difficulty in meeting people in the village, she decides to enter a local cooking contest where she might win the contest and make some friends. The fact that she can't cook doesn't bother her at all. She decides to go to London to buy a spinach quiche from a pastry shop and pass it off as a homemade entry. When someone (the judge) dies after eating some of Agatha's quiche, she becomes a suspect in a murder investigation. A deadly poisonous plant called cowbane was found to be in her spinach quiche.

Agatha suffers great humiliation after the villagers learn of her quiche deception and show their disgust for her. Several of them call her a cheat to her face. She really wants to leave Carsely, but then decides that if she were to solve the murder mystery and find the killer, perhaps the people will accept her. And so begins the first of the Agatha Raisin stories. This book introduces some of the characters that will appear in the later books. Agatha's romantic interest, James Lacey, the local vicar's wife, Mrs. Blosxby (who becomes a dear friend) and Bill Wong a police detective who admires Agatha, but wishes that she would not get involved in murder cases.

This is a very entertaining and witty story and the often pugnacious Agatha is unlike any other heroine.

Clay's Quilt is a powerful novel lovingly and masterfully pieced from the lives of the residents of Free Creek, Kentucky. Whether working, playing, laughing, praying, driving, crying, singing, fighting, dancing, hollering, or loving, these people do it passionately and with every fiber of their beings; these people LIVE. As a result, the novel itself lives and breathes and makes a joyful noise through the voices of its people as well as through their music. House's prose is lyrical yet unsentimental, fiercely grounded in real, concrete, sensuous and intimate details of everyday life. As the novel follows Clay Sizemore's struggle to find his place in the world and to make peace with a tragic past, we witness his tender and ferocious love for family and friends, his awe and gratitude at finally finding true love with a fiddle player named Alma, and his determination to make a home and a life for himself and his new family. House's voice is true and Clay's Quilt is a book both joyous and haunting, a story whose characters stayed with me long after I finished reading.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite books of the year. The story of Clay Sizemore coming to terms with himself and his family history is a small, intimate story, but somehow it's also very big and encompassing...like a real family, I suppose. Once I started reading it, I just could not put it down and feel as if I know each of the characters personally. In fact, I wish I could really spend time with Easter, Clay, Alma, Cake (especially Cake!), Dreama, Anneth, Gabe, Lolie, and all of the others. I really liked the use of music in the book (this was the reason I first bought it, because I had heard it was bursting to the seams with music, and I wanted to see how a writer could pull that off); it was expertly done and really added to the scenes, making them even more cinematic than House's beautiful descriptions. I'm glad it's finally out in paperback so my book club will FINALLY buy it for our April selection. This edition has a great interview in the back and questions for book clubs. This novel is poetic and haunting but never heavy-handed or long-winded. I felt like I knew the people within this book, even though I was raised in a much different place (Maryland) than its setting (Kentucky). This book is, in a word, beautiful.

What a beautiful and heart-felt story! I loved this book and I'm excited to see new young writers like this man who can carry the torch for southern fiction. If you love Eudora Welty, Lee Smith, and Robert Morgan then you'll like this book. It stays with you.

"Stopped at Stalingrad" is one of those genuine surprises. Just when you think you have read everything you need to read or want to read about a given subject, along comes a book that forever alters your view of that subject.

This book's principle focus is on the Luftwaffe's role on the Eastern Front. It may, indeed, be the only book length treatment of the subject. Joel Hayward demonstrates with great care that the German's use of air power as a tactical, and not strategic, weapon in close support of ground forces was perhaps THE key factor in the German army's early successes in the East. Patton and the Allied Generals could only DREAM of tactical air-ground support on this level. Writes Hayward, "The Luftwaffe, together with the army meticulously co-ordinated their operations and created joint "Schwerpunkte"(points of main efforts)." I may be demonstrating my own woeful lack of knowledge, but this is the first time in all my reading about the German war effort that I encountered a discussion of the critical doctrine of Schwerpunkte.

But one of this book's best offerings, comes at the very beginning where Hayward outlines in detail the crucial role that oil, or the lack thereof, played in the entire German war effort. From the outset, the German's were running at a critical deficit. And even with the Rumanian oil fields running at full capacity, the German's were in terrible trouble. And every time they absorbed a new chunk of territory, their situation became all the more desperate.

So great was Germany's reliance upon the Rumanian oil fields that Hitler became obsessed with the potential for Russian bombers to turn them in to what he called, "an expanse of smoking debris." The fear proved, of course groundless, the Russians were never able to mount an effective long-range bomber command. But this fear led to a costly, Quixotic "cleansing of the Crimea" -- the so-called "Operation Bustard Hunt".

When the German's launched Operation Barbarossa, their requirements for oil became critical. And this chronic problem led Hitler to focus on the oil fields of the Caucasus. Indeed from this point on much of the German strategic war effort was geared towards securing a reliable oil supply (or developing alternatives).

The effort to reach the Caucasus proved, in many respects, to be Germany's undoing. And it was a fruitless effort to begin with. It assumed that: (A) they could reach the fields at all; (B) that if they reached them the oil fields were not so badly sabotaged that they could be put into production in time to make a difference; and (c) the oil supply once secured could be actually brought back to German over a SINGLE rail line of varying gauges that crossed thousands of miles of terrain open to sabotage and air attack. But Hitler was blind to all of this.

Hayward writes with great passion and precision. At times one feels a little overwhelmed by details. But his portraits of the individual German pilots and commanders, as well of the shocking conditions under which they fought and died, is truly memorable.

This is a book that is not only for the specialist. Anyone with an interest in the Second World War needs to read this book. It makes a brilliant companion to Antony Beevor's book, "Stalingrad".

This is a detailed book with a strong analytical component, great new photographs, and a good bilingual bibliography. The author begins in March 1942 and takes the Stalingrad campaign through to its death in February 1942. Both air force and ground operations get good coverage, but the real strength of this book is its explanation of how the two branches (and even the German navy in the Black Sea) cooperated together. The account is based on a careful reading of scores of unpublished war diaries and other rare documents, and is therefore a nice surprise after reading countless previous Stalingrad books which all quote the same, readily available sources (Lost Victories, Chuikov's book, etc). The book is stronger overall than Beevor's book, even if the latter is faster paced and has more on the Soviets.

Put plainly: you can't understand the Battle of Stalingrad without this book. It is the only analysis of air and joint components of that hell on earth battle. Its author did a huge amount of work in archives and relies on unpublished diaries, notebooks, situation reports, squadron records, afteraction assessments and so on. The argument is clear and persuasive: that much of the credit for German successes during the eastern battles of 1942 must go to the Luftwaffe. Whereas many enthusiasts and some scholars have always presented the Luftwaffe as the secondary, supportive arm, with the army dominant, Dr Hayward makes clear that that view is out of date and unsupportable. The Luftwaffe led and dominated during the entire 1942 campaign. That doesn't mean that it could perform the impossible task Goering and Jeschonnek gave to it: supply of Sixth Army. Hayward's analysis of the airlift is the only authoritative account. The book is superbly crafted and compellingly written. It is one of three or four books that every Stalingrad reader MUST own.

Being the namesake of the protagonist might have influenced how I view the book, but even if my name wasn't Esmeralda I still would judge this book as wonderful. Maybe it has something to do with Billy being naughty, humorous, flawed and impossible; maybe it's about the unexpected glimpses of tenderness from Billy like the way he dotes Sadie - or maybe it's just me.

I love the book, Miss Medeiros. I've read two other of your books, and they show the same brand of funny romantic writing that I really enjoy. I hope you keep on writing this well.

In 1878, Billy Darling, the youngest brother of the infamous Darling brothers gang, met Miss Esmerelda Fine in Calamity, New Mexico when she boldly entered the Tumbleweed Saloon holding a gun at Billy's heart. Esmerelda believes that the gunfighter killed her brother and wants the law to do something about it. When the local sheriff refuses, she closes her eyes and fires her derringer, but misses her intended target. Instead of Billy being behind bars, Esmerelda is placed in jail for attempted murder.

Billy gets her released and convinces her that he never killed her sibling. He agrees to help her find him. The couple begins an odyssey that soon leads them to love. However, can the granddaughter of an English Duke and an outlaw have enough in common to cement a lasting relationship?

NOBODY'S DARLING will be historical romance fans' darling due to its phenomenal story line, two majestic lead protagonists, and a healthy assortment of supporting cast members. The brisk plot brilliantly blends yet contrasts elements of a Victorian romance with that of an Americana romance into one of the year's best novels. Teresa Medeiros confirms she is one of the leading writers of the nineties with her ability to smoothly move her tale back and forth across the Atlantic.

Harriet Klausner

This is truly one of the sweetest romances I have read. I can't really find much wrong with it. The characters are so endearingly written, they just jump off the page. Teresa's characters are always flawed and unconventional (compared to the mass of romance novels out there. Some of her female characters are even a bit plump.). Billy Darling just made me melt - everything about him was smooth as honey. I loved the way he spoke to Esmerelda and how she reacted to him. I could just picture him so well and he made my heart throb! I even melted into tears at the ending. I believe this is one of Teresa Medeiros' finest works - rich characters, a rich love story, dialogue that makes you smile, and wonderful humor (I smile whenever I picture that dog Sadie with her bonnet). This book is definitely a keeper!