"You can't know a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins," is the best quote I can come up with to sum up the impact of "Soon Will Come the Light".

Thomas McKean has presented in this book the one thing that I always wished for, but few books could offer---the ability to walk in my children with autism's shoes for a while and perhaps gain a deeper understanding of what their world looks and feels like.

McKean's writing reveals loving, gentle, brilliant man with autism, and his book is a stereotype buster. He shows us that people with autism have worth and wisdom to share with the world. He teaches us both through his inspiring gifts as a poet, and with his "no holds barred" personal thoughts on many of the current intervention trends in autism, such as auditory integration.

Even better, Thomas' book shows us who he is, a precious human being who walked away from life in an institution and bravely learned to coexist and compensate for the often harrowing sensory issues that come with a diagnosis of autism.

This book is a must read. It is a story of survival, courage, and the strong realization that people with autism have much to contribute to this world.

Mr. McKean is to be applauded for this timeless contribution to literature on autism. I will hold this book dear for a very long time to come.

Liane Gentry Skye
author
Turn Around, Bright Eyes-Snapshots from a Voyage out of Autism's Silence

As a teacher of students with Autism, I found this book to be very insightful. To be able to view Autism through the eyes of a person living with Autism was very helpful to me. I found his sections on sensory issues to be very informative. I loved his works of poetry at the end.

Thomas McKean gives great advice and valuable insight for parents of autistic children. He understands how parents try so hard to be helpful for their children, and sometimes fall short for lack of understanding. Thomas gives an insider's view of what autism feels like as a child and as an adult.

Thomas was a student of "The Child Whisperer" author Matt Pasquinilli. Mr. Pasquinilli has worked with children and adults challenged by austism and aspergers syndrome, and speaks about it in his book. Get "The Child Whisperer" for some great advice that compliments Thomas McKean's "Soon will come the Light."

Gilpin et al. aptly depict and identify what has made Yale's workers and the movement they have created so vibrant and strong. This book is all the more pertinent given last month's strike of all four unions.

I had to read this book for a US Labor History course at the University of Colorado. It was absolutely incredible. The authors trace the events leading up to the strike but, more importantly, they describe how the community of New Haven came together in order to defeat "Corporate Yale." I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in labor history and the struggles faced by American workers.

"Men are only truly great when they act from the passions"- Benjamin Disreaeli

"The one thing that all these people have in common is not their personal style, nor their interpersonal skills, nor their business skills, but their passion, and their determination to listen silently, so that when, at the still point, the call for their particular quest came, they were listening for the call." -pg128

Some other key traits of unstoppable people are that they posses an unshakeable faith and a strong certainty of who they are and are not afraid to declare it. They are not outcome focused they are value focused and the focus on their passion is to server others.

This book is a slight departure from the normal how-to styled self-help books. Instead the author has elected to weave his own personal life journey into an autobiographical styled self-help book. The book gives us some candid glimpses of a man's journey and how the books, seminars and techniques of today's self-help gurus have aided him in forwarding his life. The end result is not a man who has arrived but rather is still learning and very greatful to those who have encouraged him on his own journey.

Pros: Excellent for those who do not particularly like "how-to" self help books. There is no soap box preaching here. It is a more personal look at how one person actually used the techniques of various self-help books to forward his journey. The book is also a source of encouragement to actually see how various principles are incorporated into his life. The book is an excellent review of fundamental self-help principles.

Cons: none that I can think of

Reading this book has changed my life. Not bad for $17

It's probably the best-written book i've read so far: it's what i call scientific writing. No approximate statement, every concept is provided with a discussion of what it can be used for and what it cannot. There is no tedious statement like the one you see in many science books where the theory is simply given without any mention of the underlying hypothesis making it useless in practice...time series analysts should know what i'm talking about...

Of course, reading this book when you don't have any interest in time series analysis is probably a bad idea since you need quite a strong background in classical time series analysis techniques (time as well as frequency domain).

Kate Stone is one of my favorite Civil War diarists. She is an admixture of a great privilege, passionate beliefs, lover of literature, keen social observations and amazing fortitude. Her Civil War was dangerous, turbulent and life changing.

Brokenburn was a large plantation containing over 150 slaves in Madison Parish, LA. From 1862 on, it was in the center of the Union Army's fierce assault to gain control of the Mississippi River and divide the Confederacy in half. Plantations were commandeered and slaves were encouraged to revolt. The civilian population was helpless before the demands of military control. Madison Parish had a population of approximately 9,000 of whom 7,000 were slaves. After 1861, the Parish was emptied of able-bodied white men, most of whom had been sent to far-off Virginia and Tennessee, leaving none to protect the civilians.

In 1861, Kate was 20 years old, her immediate future being beaus, courtship, and a gay social life before she settled down to become a proper southern matron. She was unsure whether this route was ideal, as she remarked, "women grew significantly uglier in wedlock and ignored and abandoned their former female friends." This comfortable world was turned upside down, never to reappear again. With great enthusiasm and some trepidation, she watched her three older brothers go off to war. Her widowed mother made it clear that 14-year-old James was now in charge of the running of the plantation and the protection of the rest of the family. I was amazed at the serene assumption that a young teenager was thrust in this role, but it seems that was the custom of the times. If you had to grow up fast, you did. Yellow fever was a constant in the area, and longevity was not a norm. Both Generals Grant and Lee wanted their troops out of these areas during "the seasons of pestilence." This was not to be, and both armies suffered devastating losses to disease. Kate treated the "fever season" as a fact of life, and planned around it with remarkable briskness.

By 1862, the Stone family was desperate. The Federal leadership demanded that they stay on their property; yet there were serious slave insurrections that threatened the lives of the plantation holders. Those slaves who were not hostile were running off, and there was no labor to farm the crops. Many southerners could not believe that their "loyal" slaves would run away. Kate was not among them, saying, "If I were in their place, I'd do the same." She was by no means sympathetic, just practical.

The family finally escaped through the bayous in a rickety canoe with nothing, not even underwear, and finally made it across the border into Texas. They were refugees along with many other prominent Louisiana families. Kate was convinced they had arrived at "a dark corner of the Confederacy." Upon noting the barefoot but hoop skirted frontier ladies, she sniffed "there must be something in the air of Texas fatal to beauty."

Kate agonized over the increasingly bad war news and was devastated by Lee's surrender. Kate is one of the most vivid, perceptive diarists of the Civil War. Her diary is one of social history, a time of calamitous change and invaluable for understanding this crucial time in American history. Kate is a natural writer and observer. A highly enjoyable read.

"The Hysterical Child, the Anxious Child, the Borderline Child" was published in January 1994 by Jason Aronson. This 322 page English language paperback edition is edited by E. James Anthony and Doris C. Gilpin. This title is categorized in the Library of Congress as 'Child psychopathology' and 'Borderline personality disorder in children.'

If you are interested in Commadore Ralph Monroe and his Biscayne Bay Sharpies, this is a must have book! The chapter on the seaworthyness of shoal draft boats is worth the price of the book. The style reminds me of Hershoff's Compleat Cruiser, with Florida pioneer twist.

In A Guide To Writing In The Sciences, Andrea Gilpin and Patricia Patchet-Golubev successfully collaborate to present a basic introduction to the fundamental aspects and conventions of science writing. This "user friendly" guide gives an articulate and practical presentation for writing the laboratory report, the academic research report, writing essay exams, and other common types of scientific writings for presentations and proposals. All relevant elements of grammar and writing style for clarity, conciseness, and forcefulness are covered. Very highly recommended for science students, researchers, and practitioners, A Guide To Writing In The Sciences is enhanced further with three appendices: "Resources on Writing"; "Classification of Organisms"; "International Units".

Hammond is not a nice guy. He married for money, was not a great father, and campagined for elected office at time when no one else did and against the 'party' candidate to boot. Most interesting of all was his commitment to the Confederate cause but resistance to the call for material and manpower to help the cause. In the end, he could not believe it when his slaves were jubilant about the prospect of freedom. Through Hammond's eyes we see the south changed forever by the Civil War, not only due to the lost of their slaves but also by the unsouthern actions the Confederate government had to take and how they affected the southern way of life. Hammond is not a nice guy but this very readable book provides an excellent insight to the antebellum southern mind.

This is a solid and substantial work on all aspects of the study of gender from and archaeological perspective. The book is readable and well organized. Topics run the gamut from definitions of terms and issues through examples of gendered research to the narratives that result from gendered studies. It presents a wide variety of perspectives, but all soundly based in data. Excellent!