This book is about the life of a confessed mob hit man. Some times books like this make me question if the author is not adding a little to make sure the buzz is there it sell the book. If this guy really did the damage he claims and for the reasons stated then why did not one of his "family" friends not put a hit out on him? And while we are talking, how many people have claimed to have been part of the Hoffa killing? So many they evidently needed to pick Hoffa up in a school bus to fit all the killers in.

Don't get me wrong; this is a very entertaining book, with just an armload of tabloid type details about the mafia and a lot of interesting stuff on the government and the witness protection program. The book is a very interesting jump into the world of the Mafia and you will remember of lot of the story for a good while after you have finished it.

Hey, I want to read this book but cannot find it anywhere. Please E-mail me at kdokan1074@aol.com if you know where I can get a copy at areasonable price.

if you have read this book you will understand the need for it to be a feature film. it is almost impossible to get a copy of this book. "the powers that be" made sure of that. i presently own the film rights to make it . the script is done.afters 2 years of work .. now all i need is a green light . interested? contact me joe droneheads@aol.com

This is a nice, interesting, quick read that really takes one into the heart of this village and culture.

The best beginnings are always the simplest.

In Leaving Mother Lake, the reader is instantly drawn in as Namu begins her story by pleading with her mother to share the details of her birth. With this seemingly simple request made at her mother's knee, Namu unfolds the world in which she grew up and all of the important players. She tells her own coming of age story but she also shares the stories of her village and her people.

It's easy to see why she wanted to leave such a remote and impoverished place. What makes Namu's story special is how much she feels indebted to her culture and her people for producing her.

Everyone has great stories about their childhood but some of Namu's are particularly expected. For instance, this is probably the first time readers will come to know a little girl who was so cold while herding yaks in the mountains that she stuck her legs in the yaks' stream of urine during Winter mornings to feel warm, even if only for a few moments.

A truly spectacular memoir.

Fascinating. This is a very absorbing book, told in an easy, personable style. To be sure, some of Namu's reminiscences seem to have come to us right out of Huckleberry Finn-they strain credulity just a little. Like when she goes to meet her pen pal, and reacts violently to the fact that he is not the way she had pictured him: "How dare you be so ugly!" This book is Namu's life as told to an anthropologist, and some of the anecdotes appear to have been tweaked a bit for effect. Namu herself alludes to this when she says that her words were "filtered through another's imagination." And I had to chuckle at the publisher's promotion on the dust jacket: "Despite the freedoms Namu enjoys, they are not the freedoms she desires." Such could only be written by an affluent American. Freedoms? When little Namu was warming her frozen extremities in the flow of a yak's urine, the furthest thing from her mind was how bored she was with her "freedom." That being said, I do think that Namu speaks from the heart, so this book really is a sincere accounting of Namu's life growing up as a Moso... "with a few stretchers," as Huck Finn would say.

I was a bit confused at the beginning of the book, because Namu seems almost to glorify the institutionalized promiscuity that permeated the Moso lifestyle, although, to her credit, she honestly admits to the venereal disease that was a result of it. But as the book progressed, I began to understand her a little better. She seems to want to emphasize that her running away from the village of her childhood is not a repudiation of everything in her past. In order to be fair, I decided to accept her position for the sake of argument and see where it led.

To the extent that this book is a defense of a fatherless society, it does not succeed. A society where there are no fathers--where marriage is not respected as a sacred institution, where nobody ever says, "'Till death do us part," where the father is never more than a guest in the home, where people literally do not know how to tell the difference between "sexy" and "beautiful"-such a community and such a culture is not a place people want to move to. It is a place people want to get away from, which is what this book is about. But if the Moso have not been divinely chosen to lead the world to utopia, who is qualified to sit in judgment of their way of life? Certainly not the Americans. Nowhere in the world has promiscuity become more thoroughly institutionalized that in America. The Americans have lost the ability to distinguish between romantic love and conjugal love. And this in a society that once nurtured such distinctions as the defining qualities of civilized society. No, if there is a culture somewhere that stands in contrast to the Moso ethic, it is certainly not America, where people say, "I do," but don't.

So I depart from judgment and focus on the very personal story of a young woman who is determined not to be stuck in the rut of the destiny her family tradition has mapped out for her. She is determined to break free. To go beyond. To live, to discover, to explore, to be free! Suddenly I have found someone I can really relate to. What was it that made my grandfather leave his home in Norway, and come to America to live as a homesteader? It wasn't money. He was the oldest son; he had inherited the family farm. And what made my father leave the comforts of America and go to postwar Japan as a missionary? Again, it wasn't about money. When I graduated from high school in 1972, my classmates were all getting summer jobs and preparing for college. I packed all my belongings in my brother's army duffle bag. Then I had my sister take me to the nearest freeway, and I stuck out my thumb.

There is something I really like about this lady. For me, the most powerful part of this book is that moment in the kitchen of the country schoolhouse when she destroys the cooking pots. I wanted to grab a hammer and help her. Then I wanted to crush those blasted pots to a fine powder! Run, Namu, run! Go! Leave! Get out! Run, run and don't stop running! There is a big world out there! All kinds of opportunities await you! A rut is just a grave with both ends kicked out. Get out now!! Fly! Be free!

I give this book my highest recommendation, because in the end, it really is a story of the triumph of the human spirit over the crushing weight of what everyone expects you to do. To be sure, there is always more to the story than just running. Far too many have made a life of running and running and running and never finding. And if what you are leaving is bad, what you go to could be worse if you are not careful. Like the pathetic-humerous adventurer in Bette Bao Lord's "Legacies" who "escaped" to North Korea! But I'm wandering. The point is that Namu did not allow her past and the expectations of her community to define who she was to become, and in that sense, her story is a triumph, and her life is an example to young people everywhere who are faced with similar choices. This is the story of a courageous young lady who took "the one less traveled by" and it made all the difference.

If wolves went to ballet, they wouldn't go to Swan Lake, they would go to Swine Lake! We think 4th and 5th graders would like this book because it is more challenging. You should read it a couple times to really understand it and have fun reading it. It's a very good book. It has action in it. We thought it would be rated 4.

Swine Lake is a wonderfully creative story. It takes a twist that my daughter (age 7) nor I expected. The art of Maurice Sendak is as wonderful as ever. Great fun to read.

Swine lake, was absolutely wonderful, and it brought back memories of my childhood years. I reccomend it to those who are young at heart. I found it a very tasteful, and enjoyable piece of literature. So read it i say...thankyou

Writer Cleo Grayson McCarthy is having trouble finding her muse on her latest work. Her friend Grace offers her cottage on Cameo Lake in New Hampshire to recharge her creative batteries. Now she is away from her husband and children and other distractions of everyday life. The lake is beautiful, and soon she is making progress on her book. Her neighbor across the lake catches her interest as well. His name is Ben Turner, and soon he and Cleo become friendly. Cleo's family comes to the lake for the weekend. She notices her husband Sean has pulled away from her, especially when he goes back home and leaves her with the kids. He has been getting more and more involved in work--or so he says. Eight years before, she experienced the pain of his infidelity, and she fears it is happening again. She sends her children to day camp, and in this time her friendship with Ben deepens. Secretive, wounded Ben slowly begins to open up.... The protagonists' professions are used beautifully in the narrative with ingenious references to prose and music composition. The lively first-person narrative eloquently tells the story of a woman slowly realizing that her life needs to change, and finding the courage to face grief, guilt, and pain in the change.

I'm a guy who up until now has always read nonfiction. However, I've recently discovered that if I'm going to read "make-believe" once in a while, how much I might enjoy reading novels by female authors. I'm finding out how much I can learn from them. . . especially the nuances of the authors' thought process, especially when falling in love. I would therefore like to recommend Cameo Lake, by Susan Wilson, mostly for men, who will learn just how a woman allows the budding romance to unfold. Most valuable, as I've said, are all the shades of gray that most men probably don't pick up on; for example, her understanding of shy people, pg 24. . . being excited initially with just being friends with Ben, pg 32. . . more of the same excitement on pg 68. . . her disappointment on pg 106 that he was too polite under special circumstances. . . admitting enjoying his nearness on pg 114. . . a white lie on pg 118. . . finding him increasingly attractive, pg 120. . . further, a different sort of man, pg 125. . . lots of nuanced revelations on pg 144, as her feelings for him begin to increase (lucky guy). . . resisting emotional urges, pg 191. . . agonizing over her feelings to the point of being sick, pg 196. . . "smitten with memory", pg 222. . . her own shyness revealed on pg 237. . . hey, it all adds up to a sweet and loving account of how a woman falls in love with a man. This is not a fluff book, although it is an easy read. And finally, a glance at the author's portrait on the back of the book shows all these nuances on her face, with soft eyes that penetrate deep.

This book definately threw me for a loop, but it was very worthwhile. I wasn't used to 3rd person perspective, and it was hard to adapt too. The first chapter was a bit slow, but once I started to get into it, I couldn't put the book down. I absolutely love romances, and this had it. It's just a wonderful novel, taking place at a wonderful place that you can fully image in your mind. You will never forget this book after you're done reading!

In this second installment of the "Kodiak" book, things really pick up and move. I thought this book was a lot more fun then the previous installment, and it would make a great movie. George Kodiak, cryptozoologist/badass is back, tracking the legendary lake monster Ogopogo up in Canada. Good guys, Bad guys, monsters, and a really big helicopter.
Some of the chapters are right out of a summer blockbuster, much better then those in other recent sci-fi monster books like Meg. This book also doesn't have the sadistic streak that the previous installment featured.
Keep 'em coming!!!

Finally Mr. Murphy has provided us with yet more reading pleasure. Finally there is an original author out there who knows how to research a subject before daning to write about it. Finally the reading public is provided with true reading pleasure, with intelligent action and gut-wrenching newness of style. Finally, someone who can paint with words and fill our minds with fresh pictures and ideas.

Now there is something new to look forward to reading. I can't wait for the next one, Mr. Murphy.

THWACK! That's the sound of Lee Murphy hitting another home run with his second book, NAITAKA. Fans of high-tech thrillers and adventure novels will find themselves right at home in the pages of this book. As he did with the sasquatch in his first book, WHERE LEGENDS ROAM, Murphy portrays the basilosaur as an animal of nature, instead of a bloodthirsty monster. That's not to say there aren't plenty of close calls when it comes to this large, toothy predator. Murphy is a master at mixing realism and action. The overall effect is akin to the Discovery Channel on steroids. George Kodiak continues to be one of the most carefully crafted characters you are likely to encounter. I say this because Kodiak doesn't seem to be designed or crafted at all, he just IS. You can't ask more from an author than that when it comes to character development. Murphy paces the story nicely and is even able to weave a chilling subplot into the action. My advice to anyone reading this is kick back, put your feet up, turn off the Discovery Channel, and take a journey to British Columbia with George Kodiak to solve the mystery of Ogopogo. You'll be glad you made the trip.

"Sue walks along the seashore/warmed by the sun./Picking up seashells one by one..." Author, Marianne Berkes, takes readers on a wondrous seaside adventure in her third picture book, Seashells By The Seashore. Come count the beautiful shells, learn their names, and watch your collection grow on the lefthand border of each two page spread as you walk along the beach..... Ms Berkes lilting, rhyming text is engaging and complemented by Robert Noreika's captivating watercolor illustrations. Together, word and art send you to the beach on a hot summer day, and you'll almost be able to feel the sand between your toes, hear the crash of the waves, and smell the salty sea air. Additional information about each shell and the mollusks that live inside can be found at the end of the book, and young nature detectives, ages 4-8, will revel in this joyous, fun-filled hike along the shore.

Seashells by the Seashore had my five and seven year olds running to find shells they had already collected to discover their names. To their delight, the shells they had were featured in the book. What I particularly like about the book is its interactive nature, encouraging children to go beyond the pages and explore the seashore searching for the shells they had read and learned about. My children are planning to bring the book on an upcoming beach vacation, and the pull-out shell reference card, an added bonus.

Berkes's has done it again and this time the subject of her book is one of my favorite nature items! A truly informative book; I can finally name all the sea shells I have thanks to the descriptions within the story and glossary at the end. The unique set up of this book identifies each shell as the main character finds them which can be used to promote counting in young children, and memory/matching games for older children. Berkes also includes questions at the end to foster further investigation in the reader. The pull-out, waterproof shell identification chart merits a field trip to the beach. Noreika's breath taking watercolor illustrations illuminate the shoreline from morning to dusk. The book's poignant ending instills the value that a gift from the heart is better than a monetary one.

Bruce Mason, a diplomat and ambassador in his sixties, returns to Salt Lake City for the funeral of his aunt, who is the last remaining connection to a family history Mason has spent forty years avoiding. During the day and night he is there, he travels throughout Salt Lake, trying to locate landmarks from his troubled early life while reminiscing about the events which permanently influenced choices he made and directions he took as an adult. Gentle and reflective in tone, despite its scenes of sadness and disillusionment, this is a novel quite different from Stegner's epics, such as Angle of Repose and Big Rock Candy Mountain, with their enormous scope. Here, he creates what amounts to a memoir--a record of the life-changing experiences which one man, Mason, associates with his family, friends, and upbringing during the brief 24 hours he is in Salt Lake City.

Although this is supposed to be a sequel to Big Rock Candy Mountain, with the same main character, one need not have any familiarity with that book to enjoy this one, a book so introspective that one cannot help but wonder about the degree to which it is autobiographical. Like many of us who have outlived and, in some cases, out-achieved our parents, Mason finds his memories bittersweet. He is filled with resentment for the unintentional injuries and deliberate cruelties which made his youth and adolescence a misery. At the same time that he recognizes that he would never have been so motivated to achieve and escape had he not been so needy and so "hungry."

Though many authors have dealt with the "you can't go home again" theme, Stegner suggests here that one must go home again, not to relive early, unpleasant events again and again, stuck in the past, but to relive those events and reevaluate them from the perspective and experience one has gained over time. Unsentimental and uncompromising in its message, the book is a touching and sensitive look at the baggage we all carry with us and the need to put it aside.

As I indicated in my review of Stegner's BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN (hereafter "BRCM"), reading fiction does not get better than reading Wallace Stegner (1909-93). His Pulitzer Prize winner, ANGLE OF REPOSE (1971) is my favorite novel, and BRCM (1943) is an equally moving book. It is easy to consider RECAPITULATION (1979) the icing on BRCM.

RECAPITULATION is best read as a sequel to BRCM. Among other things, BRCM was about a father-son relationship, a son, Bruce Mason's hatred for his father, and his lifelong attempt to come to terms with his troubled family. RECAPITULATION picks up with Bruce Mason's return to Salt Lake City roughly 45 years after leaving there in Stegner's earlier novel. For Bruce, Salt Lake City is the place where "I buried my brother, my mother, my young love, and my innocence. In a few months more I buried my father and my youth" (p. 84). This is not a homecoming story. "Home," Bruce observes, is only "another word for strange" (p. 73).

During his life, Stegner commented that RECAPITULATION is about "the domination that a harsh and dominating father can exert even after his death upon a son. What is revealed in this novel is the incurable damage done to Bruce Mason." In the beginning pages of this book, we find Bruce living mostly "in his head," like "the last spectator at the last act of a play he had not understood" (p. 274), his self image fused with the image of his family. He remembers his father, Bo, as a "boomer, self-deceiver, bootlegger, eventually murderer and suicide, always burden, always enigma, always the harsh judge who must be appeased" (p. 274). Through a series of flashbacks, however, in the end RECAPITULATION is about Bruce's transformation and survival. Although "incurably" damaged, he reaches a point of autonomy and finds the understanding he longed for in BRCM: "If a man could understand himself and his own family, he'd have a good start toward understanding everything he'd ever need to know" (BRCM, p. 436).

Both BRCM and its sequel are autobiographical. Stegner wrote RECAPITULATION late in his career, and it contains some of his finest writing, e.g., "When cottonwoods have been rattling at you all through your childhood, they mean home" (p. 116).

G. Merritt

When a real-life event pulls you back into The Past, where you didn't want to go, this is what happens. Though not an action-packed thriller, it is elegant and touching.

In my senior year at Michigan Tech, I was forced into the reality that I couldn't take only engineering and science class's. I reluctantly signed up for Mr. Lanktons class and subsequently read the course text, "Cradle to Grave". This book was outstanding in it's detail of the area during the mining boom and it's decline. It gives a great account of the miner and the miner's family. What it means to be "owned by the company store". To get all of these accounts was very interesting having done plenty of "exploration" in the Keweenaw on my own. In my professional life Larry's book has proven a valuble refrence for understanding the difficulties in introducing new technology into a heavy labor-intensive industry.

I found this book tremendous in explaining why people first came to such a cold and snowy land and why there are all these rotting hulks of machines and buildings everywhere. My father and grandfathers worked in the iron mines of Michigan's Marquette Range, but on it there is much less physical evidence of the mining that occurred. Mr. Lankton's book is facinating in it's exploration of so many facets of life in the Copper Country and life's rise and fall when tied to one industry. I hope to find a book like this about the Marquette Iron Range.

Lankton's book is a welcome change from so many modern histories crammed with academic jargon. It is concise, easy to read, and chock-full of excellent primary source material. Lankton gives the reader a real feel for the place and period, and paints a balanced picture both of mine workers and management. All of the conflicting and complimentary motivations and incentives come out well, in one of the few works on American mine labor that look fairly at both sides and don't read like an IWW tract. Actually hard to put down - not something you can say often about a labor history book! Great work.

Really gave me a feel for my Finnish ancestors, who worked the mines from turn of the century until the Big Strike. A great documentation of a period whose physical remnants are fast disappearing.

Donegan gives the reader a fun but narrow inside view to the charms and tribulations of rural Irish life. Great characters and interesting stories create the fuel for intense laughter as the city slicker to rural farmer/journalist adjusts and takes a liking to his new surroundings. Unfortunately, in the end, the writer finds himself lonely without discovering the underlying concern for humankind that is present in rural Ireland. A concern that does not exist in the world in which he decides to reenter. Definitely worth purchasing.

Lawrence Donegan's book is one of the funniest I have read all year. He takes an everyday existence, so ordinary to the people he is writing about, and makes it interesting, enjoyable and comforting.
Having spent many summers in this part of Donegal, I was instantly captivated by his affable style and innate journalistic inquisitions.
Throw in a little Newt Gingrich, some decrepit, rain gathering cows and a vist from Meryl Streep and you have all the ingredients of a right rivetting read.

Written in a spare, journalistic style, "No News" is easy to read and fun. What do Newt Gingrich, Meryl Streep and gypsies have in common? and what are they doing in a tiny Irish town? A refreshing change from the current "I bought a really great house in another country" genre, its more real-"I rented a dump because it seemed like a good idea". The ending will surprise you.

A great companion to: "Round Ireland with a Fridge" and "Oh Come Ye Back to Ireland-Our First Year in County Clare".

I loved this book. Terry Gamble writes beautifully, sometimes breathtakingly so. Sometimes I had to put the book down and close my eyes, to savor the images she creates. I fell in love with every character, even Lydia March, the head of the March household, who proves to be a formidable foe for Rachel. Ms. Gamble's sense of place is strong and true and by the time I finished the book, I felt as though I'd lived at Buck's Point, that I knew Rachel and Ben and Lydia and Woody. Terry Gamble is a wonderful writer, and I can't wait for her next book.

Summers in Northern Michigan, river rock, lakes, summer people of privelege and the invisible downstairs servants, brought to lyrical life. What happens when they come together has tectonic ccnsequences. The relationships span pre WW11 to post Viet Nam eras. Characters I hated to leave when I got to that last page.

I spent summers in Northern Michigan and Ms. Gambles' descriptions of the forests and waters there made made me feel and see the land, with it's shadow bands of Native Americans come to light and life. Gorgeous!

In this thoroughly enjoyable first novel, Terry Gamble tells the story of a young Native American girl, Rachel Winneppee. Rachel find herself in the employment of a wealthy family and becomes the caretaker of the family's son Woody who has lost a leg in World War II. Their relationship, which forms the core of the book's plotline is rendered with great care and originality. The story takes some unexpected turns as the lives of Woody and Rachel intertwine. At one point the story takes a deeply sorrowful turn, but by the end a hopeful and forward looking resolution is reached.

Read this book for the engrossing story, but as importantly, look for the character development. These are people you care about. Several of the minor characters, such as Ada and Bliss, two older women who look after Rachel are delightfully
drawn and help keep the book balanced between its somewhat somber central theme and more lighthearted moments.

It is obvious that Gamble is at home with language; one only wishes that some of the descriptions of the northern Michigan land and seascapes were allowed to be a little longer. The writing is, however, elegant and spare, often poetic, especially when probing the inner lives of the people who inhabit the book. This is a wonderful read.