Just a wonderful book.I highly recommend it.

This is the best biography of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi which is written in english. Excellent work! All thanks to the author Mary Weld and Sozler Publications for writing and publishing.

Bayram Selam

This is the best biography of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi which is written in english. It is an excellent work,you can find everything about the Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. Thanks to author Mary Weld that she introduced Bediuzzaman to the world.

Bayram Selam

This book is an excellent source for information regarding the art movement at the beginning of the century and through to the death of Guggenheim. Although I didn't like Ms. Guggenheim as a person, she was an integral part of art history. The information gathered by the author is enormous. I can't think of any other resource that is chock full of so much information. I applaud Ms. Weld for her boundless enthusiaism and her research skills. I love this book and would like a copy for myself as I loaned mine out several years ago and will probably never see it again.

This book is based on a seminar presented on Dallas in the middle 1980s. The "Coxe Model" has been the basis of our firm's strategy for conducting our business since our founding and my personal model since the seminar. It puts all the pieces of the business plan program into place and makes absolute sense. My first exposure to it was like an epiphany and a revelation. No leader in the design or any A/E related consulting firm (including professional construction management firms) should go another day without reading and taking guidanace from this book.

I simply cannot give a rating higher than 3 stars. Former Governor Weld did a much better job with "Mackerel." Trying to impress us with his vast knowledge of the inner workings of the halls of Congress, he missed and instead jumbled the plot and confused the situation. It was in fact boring in many places and took an effort to finish. Leave us hope his third offering is considerably better. The bottom line, however, is that I shall read his third offering to help him toe the line.

I finished most of its book in one train ride from Philadelphia to Washington. All I ask of a novel is that I be entertained, and that it not take up too much of my time (which I think is ordinarily better spent on more serious stuff). This book wins on both counts.

I work in Gov. Weld's former haunt, the Mass. Legislature, and know what an entertaining fellow he is. What I was not prepared for is how good a WRITER he is. A quick wit and good humor don't always translate into an ability to plot and compose, but the Gov. sure does have it. Now that New York has him, I hope he can find even bigger arenas for Terry Mullally, a murderer, thief and first rate politician. What next? The Vice Presidency or the Cabinet?

Dr. Ericka Miller has intricately weaved the divergent themes of Wells-Barnett, Grimke, and Larsen into a cogent analysis of post-Reconstruction literature. Each of these authors examined the social and political injustices that existed in the United States following the Civil War, but each brought a different approach to the common problems facing a society still coming to terms with the consequences of the secession and ultimate defeat of the Confederacy.

Once again, Dr. Miller's ability to bring synergy to these author's writings is an impressive accomplishment. I recommend this book to my students, my colleagues, and anyone else interested in the literature of our most trying era.

The Other Reconstruction is an insightful examination of a difficult period in American history and the literature that helped to illuminate it. But this work is as remarkable for its style as its content. One rarely finds a Ph.D. thesis worthy of printing for the general public, much less one as readable as Dr. Miller's. She has brought life to academic writing without detracting from its substance. In doing so, she reminds us that literature isn't just about A story. It's about HIStory.

This is a must have for all welders and apprentices. It is one of the most informative books about welding, boring as all get out, but still very good

The story seemed forced and came out unnaturally. The premise was an interesting, but I found my mind wandering. The characters were not engaging at all! Also, their actions often seemed to come out of no where, with hardly any follow up. The beginning of the novel overall was too cutesy and corny for words. The ending was a bit better, but still didn't make up for the first portion. I'm glad I've done reading it, so I can move on to something more interesting and better written!

The strain of Weld's prose was uncomfortable after a while- the effort of ambition, not artistry, is evident in this novel. The love scenes were gruesome in particular- the dialogue that is used to express a young man's sexual desire, one of the most natural scenes to encounter in art and life, is here made irrevocably awkward and discomforting. My sense of the author was of a man who thought that writing simple thoughts down simply, and in relatively short sentences, was enough to make him the new Hemingway (he miscalculated). I also puzzled at the author's photo that accompanied his bio on the back cover- is the anxious look upon this man's face spotted with snowflakes supposed to remind me of the politically conscientious Redford? It looks more likely that he lost a cow in the snow off-camera.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long, long time. The descriptions of the time, place and characters are haunting. Although I have finished the book some time ago, it remains in my mind.
Beautiful and sensitive! Maybe one of my all-time favorites!

I found this book in the bargain bin at a super market. I figured that I'd be hard pressed to not get my money's worth on a 50-cent investment. Yet, sure enough, I put down "MACKEREL BY MOONLIGHT" after about 40 pages. I like politics and I like mysteries, so this book, by the interesting former governor of Massachusetts, seemed like a safe bet. Instead, Weld packs within those 40 pages every politically useful (for Weld) character trait he can apply to his lead character, including wholesome affiliations with people of just about every identifiable demographic group in, well, in Massachusetts. Maybe there's a story here beneath the propaganda, but I didn't wait around to find out. You shouldn't either.

I gave this 2 stars instead of 1 because in fairness I didn't finish the book and I guess it could possibly get better.

Terrence Mullaly is the antihero of ex-Governor William Weld's surprisingly cynical political thriller. When Mullaly hotfoots it out of Brooklyn and his assistant DA's job, he settles in Boston working big buck criminal defense cases. Much to his surprise, he is recruited to run against the incumbent DA and actually wins. Suddenly, a seat in the Senate and life with the blue bloods seem to be within reach, but then his crooked past catches up with him.

Weld is trying awfully hard to be funny here and the effort shows. Hopefully in future efforts he'll relax a little and ease up on the snappy banter and wisecracks. As is, he's produced a passable first novel that you can finish on a three hour plane ride, no sweat. But don't expect much of it to stick. It's sort of Primary Colors by way of Mickey Spillane.

GRADE: C

I enjoyed this breezy, humorous book. It's not great (as some of the reviewers apparently require), but it certainly is good. Weld displayed a witty, sly sense of humor and told a good story.

This book is so repetitive, cutesy and unoriginal, so grating, amateurish and tedious, I can't find a single positive thing to say about it, except that it made me hungry for arepas, which , in keeping with the style of the novella, are mentioned I think twice on every page (why write a new sentence whan the one you wrote yesterday can just be repeated?). The author clearly thinks she's being very clever-- the smugness and self-satisfaction seep greasily out of every line-- but she's just spinning her wheels. Just because you may have read a book, doesn't mean you should write one. The author should get a new hobby. It's a truly insufferable book.

...and that being said, I really enjoyed this novel. I have to agree with the review below, that the saucy language of Soraida the parrot seemed completely in character with her personality (as developed in the book) -- her language, in fact (including heaping foul insulting names upon the president), was one of the things that most upset her critics, bringing about the trial that is the focus of the book. The entire premise would have been altered if our feathered friend's foul language had been omitted or truncated.

The family at the center of the story -- the Romandias -- is a privileged one, with each member possessed of his or her own unique eccentricity. The mother sits all day rocking in a chair, rarely speaking. The grandmother covers herself -- and anyone who gets too close -- with dusting powder. One of the uncles manufactures bowler hats -- then, upon coming to the lightning-like flash that they're not going to be very popular in the heat of the South American tropics, switches to designing brassieres. Another uncle is obsessed with chess -- he has games in progress (between himself and 'the manual') all over the house. The father is a flirting, seemingly inept aristocrat. The housekeeper believes in all manner of demons and spirits. The two girls -- one of which is our narrator, looking back at the events here from a fever in her old age -- are unschooled, and unlike any children you will have encountered anywhere.

The magistrate's central question -- to which he returns again and again during the 'trial' -- is 'What sort of family is this?' The family members look at each other and shrug helplessly -- it is up to Soraida, the amazingly, fantastically sentient parrot who has lived with them 'for generations' to speak on their behalf. And speak she does. She launches into nothing less than a history of the family going back for hundreds of years, intertwining it with her own view of the history of the New World -- throwing in many of her own spicy diatribes and verbal poison darts along the way, directed at those who dare to sit in judgement of 'these dreamers, these innocents', as she calls the Romandias.

All of the events depicted in the book take place over the course of a single day -- with the exception of a few musings by our narrator, looking back through her fever at that day 'long ago'. The country where the story takes place is never called by name, but the Orinoco River is mentioned -- and it comes up that the children's mother came from Argentina. Still, I was left with a definite feeling of being out of time as well as place while reading this alternately frightening and amusing tale.

Soraida is an unforgettable character -- certainly unlike any bird the reader is likely to come across anywhere in 'this' world.

I can't believe any reader except Mrs. Grundy would be upset by a few apropriately racy words from a parrot's mouth. I found Rara Avis witty, evocative, and engrossing from start to finish, and read it in a single sitting. The author belongs in the ranks of Garcia Marquez, Isable Allende, Laura Esquivel and Vargas Llosa and adds a sassy American irreverence to their genre. Even the design of the book and the paper is a delight. As elegant as the writing.

If you enjoy slightly-trashy entertainment biographies, as do I, this one's not too bad. Tuesday was certainly an entertaining character for her time and quite a beauty. The only criticism I have of this book is that it is peppered with diversionary paragraphs on this or that celebrity. I suppose that is a typical way to fill space when the research is rather thin.