The Wheels on the Bus is my one-year-old's favorite song. It has been our companion on long car trips, and it has forced me into greater and greater physical contortions in trying to act it out. When I saw this fabulous book, it seemed to be the answer to my prayers. Let the book do the work! Look! The doors actually open and close, and the people on the bus can go bumpety-bump without me jumping up and down. My son seemed to agree. He adores the book. The only thing is that if he gets it into his hands by himself, he tends to rip it apart. The wheels on the bus have been glued back on several times. So, we put it on a high shelf away from the other books, only to be read with an adult. But my son can't pass the shelf withoug pointing and going "Ungf, ungf." Now, I'm a slave to the Wheels on the Bus. I'm forced to read it day and night. Thank goodness it's such a wittily illustrated book. Now, if they'd only make it in a board book version..

My children (now 5 and 1) love this book. I purchased it when my son was about 2 and a half and the tabs and flaps are still working after lots of use. (A major plus as well loved books with movable parts often don't hold up to toddler adoration.) Now my daughter is taking her turns too and the "wheels on the bus" still go round as well as the wipers swishing and moms shushing. The illustrations capture attention and really bring to life this popular children's song. With this book they can make the doors on the bus open and shut, etc. with great pleasure. I highly recommend this book for its creativity and durability.

If you worry that toddler CD-ROMs and Barney videos have made it impossible for your child to concentrate on a simple story book, this book is an excellent introduction to the world of books. Not only is the song familiar and true to the original, this book with its amazingly engineered parts allow the wheels to really go round and round, for people to go bumpety bump and for all the babies to go 'waah-waah-waah' at the same time. You just have got to see it for yourself to believe such a book is possible. In addition to the main story, the beautiful illustrations tell yet another story which unfolds itself with new details everytime you open the book, so it is guaranteed to keep not only your child but you entertained for a very very long time.

I read the book Blind Beauty by K.M. Peyton. The book is about a young girl named Tessa, and her will and determination to win the Grand National with her horse, Buffoon. She is very rebellious, hotheaded, and loves to rebuke her stepfather, Maurice. Maurice is a hot shot horse owner and dealer, he likes to gamble a lot. She has been kicked out of boarding school three times and can't get into a new school, so Maurice sends Tessa off to work at a farm. Tessa's mother, Myra, is ruled by Maurice and has no say to what happens to her daughter. There at the farm Tessa learns how to love again, be motivated, etc. She is asked to exercise Buffoon, who is the son of Shiner- the horse Tessa played with and loved as a kid. She decides to become a jockey and to ride Buffoon in the Grand National, one day. She has many set backs, but she still becomes a jockey. Tessa dreams were shattered when Maurice stole Lucky, who is Buffoon's friend. Buffoon wouldn't race without Lucky, and Tessa didn't win the Grand National. When she found out that Maurice stole Lucky, she stabbed him. She got to sent to the loony bin and spent two years there until Tom, a famous jockey and a good friend, helped her back on her feet. She got to ride Buffoon in the Grand National, again and won. Myra escaped from the clutches of Maurice when he finds out that she lent some money to Tessa for the Grand National and he beat her up. She went to live with her Tessa on the farm and learned some good lessons like Tessa. I think this was a great book and I give it four stars. The reason why I give it four stars is because number one it is very detailed about the races, secondly it is a very touching story like something you can relate to, and thirdly the book didn't have a lot of description about the other main characters. The book Blind Beauty is a very powerful book about a person's will power, determination, and how valuable friends can be.

This book starts out with the main character, Tessa Blackthorn, being four years old in Ireland. Her father, Declan, bred his old mare Betty and she finally gave birth to a foal after three years of trying. The foal has no eyes. Tessa names the foal Shiner, and they are inseperable. Then, Tessa's mother, Myra, tells Tessa that she can't take this arguing anymore and they are leaving to England. Tessa is brokenhearted.
When Tessa is five, Myra gets married to a greedy man named Maurice Morrison-Pleydell. He is a racehorse owner who only cares about how much money he gets from the bets. His appearance in Tessa's life throws her into a state of depression and hatred at the world.
Myra and Maurice send Tessa to a bunch of different boarding schools, but she keeps getting kicked out. When she is twelve, they can't find any boarding school to take her to. So Maurice forces her to work in a small racehorse training stable called Sparrow's Wyck.
At first Tessa hates working there, because Maurice is forcing her to. But then a horse arrives that will change her life forever. His name is Buffoon, and he is the son of Shiner. Nobody knows this except Tessa. Nobody especially cares about Buffoon besides Tessa because he is very ugly and unproportionate and no one thinks he will become a racehorse. But Tessa dreams of becoming a jockey and winning the Grand National on him.
This story follows Tessa until she is 22. It is a story of suspense, action, greed and finding out who you are. If you are not much of a reader, don't be put off by the thickness of the book. This is definitley worth the read.

Blind Beauty, by K.M. Peyton (an Irish author), is an incredible horse story set in Ireland and England. It begins when a four-year-old Tessa befriends her father Declan's eyeless filly Shiner, and forms a strong bond. Then her mother leaves Declan, taking Tessa, and remarries an abusive and not quite sane man named Maurice. Tessa grows into a rebellious twelve-year-old who has been expelled from several boarding schools. Maurice, who already loathed Tessa, was fed up with her, and so she was sent to work at his stable. There she starts pursuing riding with a passion, persuading one of the trainers to teach her. When Buffoon (Shiner's colt) arrives at the stable, he is shunned by everyone, including Tessa, for he is gawky and ugly. However, Jimmy (the trainer teaching Tessa) assigns her to ride him. Soon Tessa comes to love the good-natured oaf, and that bond becomes an obsessive love when she finds of his relation to Shiner. She dreamed of riding Buffoon in the Grand National (a steeplechase), totally confident of his abilities. Then, her plans are interrupted when her mother found another boarding school to enroll her in. To get back to Buffoon, Tessa purposely forced herself to be expelled. Once again, she pursues her dream, and with the help of Tom, a top jockey, it soon becomes a definite possibility. However, just before the Grand National, Buffoon's "best friend", a pony named Lucky, is stolen by Maurice, who is desperate for his own horse to beat Buffoon...

A long time ago (as people count these things) a somewhat overweight, near-sighted 8-year old boy wandered up to the young readers section of his local library and took down a strange volume entitled "Freddy the Detective." To be frank, the boy had only just realized that there were books to read beyond Dick and Jane. Bored, he took the book back home and discovered an entirely new world. And changed his life forever.

That same boy, now much older, has recently discovered that, far from disappearing from the shelves, Freddy the Pig still is available and is still being read. Curious to see if the magic was still there, this reviewer once again took it home. I am pleased to report that Freddy remains one of Americas greatest heroes.

"Freddy the Detective" is one of the early books in a series that stretches from 1928 to include 25 volumes of delight for both children and the adults they are bringing up. Freddy is not your ordinary barnyard animal. Not only do all the animal's on Mr. Bean's farm talk and help with the chores. Certain of them have taken the trouble to learn to read and write. Freddy's latest conquest is "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and he has decided to become the world foremost porcine investigator.

Freddy, his best friend Jinx the cat, and the sensible Mrs. Wiggins the cow confront many difficult challenges. These include the case of Everett Bean's stolen toy trains, the case of the missing rabbit, the countless plots of Simon the rat and his dishonest clan, and the case of the robbers in the hermit's cabin. And, in a grand finale, Freddy defends Jinx himself from charges of murder. Throughout all of this, our indomitable pig keeps up his plucky attitude. There is as much action in this story as there is in most efforts at more recent fiction. And a lot more fun as well.

Brooks' farm world is a microcosm of real world about us, but one were the animals are often wiser than the people. With the exception of the dastardly Simon the animals treat each other well even when they disagree. Many of them parody our own silliness, like the pompous rooster judge, but they all are likeable. I also appreciate the positive attitude that permeates Brooks writing. "Freddy the Detective" is still good reading 70 years after it was written. And the farm setting gives it a certain timelessness. It combines humor and strong values in an entertaining package, and has convinced more than one young reader that the world of books is a very fine place.

Many rears ago the local library was too far to walk to so a book buss would bring them to our school. I milled offer the shelves and found a series of intriguing stories. It was the Freddy the pig series. I enjoyed many hours reading about Freddy's adventures with his pal Jinx. Then for years he just disappeared from view. No one ever heard of him. I combed the used bookstores and still no one heard of him. Then one day he returned. Today I am rediscovering Freddy. Not only are there new adventures but the originals ar being republished.
This is the best book to start with; it explains how Freddy became a detective, which he uses, in subsequent adventures. After reading a book on Sherlock Holmes he decides he can be a pretty good detective and recruits friends in the process.
The stories are intriguing in them selves. However underlying the story are several real life concepts for one to work out as what's the matter with going to jail if you get fed and do not have to work? What do you do when the judge has already made up his mind befor the trial? I especially like the way he browbeats the pore little rabbit during his interrogation. One forgets how intimidating it could be.
Well you will enjou this story as freddy must fingure out what happened to a childs toy train and what diabolical plot it is used in.

The Freddy the Pig adventures are almost unique in children's literature. Few series, whether for children or adults are so full of the sense of community, and the character's place in that community than the Freddy books are. I've just reread six of them (two aloud) with my children. I'm amazed to find that you can read this series, end to end, in much the same way that you would read Trollope's Barchester novels, or Anthony Powell's Dance---as life caught in microcosm, studied, and loved and laughed at, and to hell with the fact that these are animals. I step off the subway each day and enter an office that is remarkably like Freddy's world, except we have few adventures. These are great books and I hope the publisher will find a ready audience for them.

I received my copy of Programming ColdFusion about a week ago. I didn't even know O'Reilly had a ColdFusion book until I saw a ColdFusion article featured on their web site.

Anyhow, I just finished reading it from cover to cover today and have to say that it is absolutely hands down THE BEST ColdFusion book on the market. I have all of the Forta books. I have the Wrox book, and while they are all great in their own respects, the O'Reilly book completely rocks!

Every chapter is well written and the book flows nicely from one chapter to the next - the result of having a single author as opposed to 5-10 like most of the other ColdFusion books. Rob gives indepth coverage to several topics usually skimmed over by the other ColdFusion authors such as LDAP, Verity, and regular expressions. His coverage of user defined funcitons is excellent as is the cflib.org site he hosts. The tag reference and function reference are awesome. Much more convenient than the online docs and the examples actually work!

Programming ColdFusion has become my NEW ColdFusion bible!

Reading this book after the Forta book, I was struck by how much more smoothly it flows from chapter to chapter. It covers a number of topics like LDAP, Verity, and great query techniques that were lacking in other books. It also has a lot more space devoted to programming and code instead of Studio screen shots on every page. The writing style is clear, with enough examples to illustrate without cluttering the book. All in all, it delivers a book that is excellant to learn from, and functions as a well thumbed through desk reference as you move on.

About six months ago the company I work for recently moved to Coldfusion 5 server (holding off on CFMX until all the bugs are worked out) and since that time, application programming duties have been dumped on me. As a web designer and not a programmer, this was a more than a little worrisome. After trying to wade through Forta's Construction Kit, Hewitt's Core Coldfusion 5, as well as "Mastering Coldfusion 5" it was as if the light was turned on by Rob Brooks-Bilson's Programming Coldfusion.

By the by, those books mentioned are all great books. I own all of them. But when it came down to what I really needed to know and understand Bilson came through like no other. Great job Rob! Keep up the good work.

When I was a kid in the late 60's and early 70's, I read all eight books in the J.R. Tunis series in his Dodgers series. Anyone who gets into the series MUST start with this one. Roy Tucker is an integral part in nearly all the books ("Young Razzle" being the exception), and "The Kid From Tomkinsville" introduces him along with the other characters. While some of the dialogue is of the "gee whiz" variety, the book and series are excellent. I'm so glad they were re-released, and I now have all of them. Now, I want to get a Dodgers replica jersey with the name "Tucker" above the number 34. Any kid between 9 and 90 who reads this book will know why.

I read this book the first time back in the mid-80's in high school. I had a burgeoning love of baseball and fell deeply in love with Tunis' works. The point I got from this story is that there is always another door to get to your dream.

I first read this book when I was 7 years old in the 1970s. I still love it to this day. The characters jump off the page and take you back to the 1940s, a different time and world.

In preparing our list of Christmas books to share with others, we had to search far and wide on amazon to find this particular book, a paperback edition of the classic Night Before Christmas.

This is the book I've used for years when reading this story to my own children, passing on Tasha Tudor and other illustrators. Why?

Although we can find the same poem and pay a lot more, with award winning illustrators, the illustrations provided by Douglas Gorsline are surely the best. They are quite colorful, and offer details little children love looking into...cats lie sleepily on the window sill, we see an overview of the town, the presents spilling from the open sack are intriguing and plentiful, and Jolly St. Nick is -- well, quite Jolly (as you can see by looking at the cover!)

The story is an "abridged version" - I'm not sure about other parents, but we read this on Christmas Eve, and we only have so much time and energy. Everything we remember from the classic poem by Clement Clarke Moore is in this version.

(From "'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse" to "He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!" In between we have everything, from the names of the eight tiny reindeer, to a belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly, including dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky".

In other words, don't be scared off by 'abridged'!)

Perhaps a hardcover edition might be more appropriate if you're giving a gift (unless you're giving to more than one child), but this book is one of the best offers we've found!

A classic done simply and inexpensively!

We have an inexpensive paperback version (see our reviews) of this classic poem, and we said that's enough for us. That was before we looked through this beautifully illustrated (by Bruce Whatley) edition of The Night Before Christmas.

The lyrics are the same, from book to book, but the fanciful illustrations in this one are enough to engage adults and children as they read this book together.

The perfect gift for any family whose Christmas tradition includes reading this classic!

This beautiful book was in my family as a hard cover edition for many years and was a Christmas Eve tradition for my four sons when they were growing up. It's poor battered body disappeared some time after the last of my little ones went off into the adult world. I am so delighted to see it back again, though this time as a nicely affordable soft cover. Clement C. Moore's enchanting story poem already provides an atmosphere filled with warmth and joyful expectation and with the addition of Tasha Tudor's quaint, nostalgic water-colors from an antique New England the Christmas magic is complete!
The winter landscapes fill our senses and Tasha's own gray tabby cat and Welsh Corgi welcome us into this charming world.
Tasha's Santa that you will meet in this book has been portrayed as the poem describes him...a right jolly old elf. He's not that much larger than the corgi and his team really consists of eight "tiny" reindeer. His pointy ears and his Eskimo mukluks add to the delightful ambiance of the book. He dances with the toys and with the happy animals and we can truly believe it will be a happy Christmas for all.
I hope this book becomes a Christmas Eve tradition for many, many more families.

I recently ordered this book and read it cover to cover in one afternoon. Brooks Brown has hit the nail right on the head when he says that 'although Eric and Dylan are responsible for the murders, it took a school like Columbine to create people like Eric and Dylan' or something to that effect.Everyone knows what the real reason is, but nobody wants to really come out and say it because the truth hurts. It's more convenient to blame it on music and television, guns or video games.All of these are scapegoats. The fact of the matter is that our schools are not only a reflection of our society, but a look at what the future of our country holds.I somtimes wonder how many more innocent, dead American children these administrators and teachers need to see before they wake up and realize that they created a hostile and offensive atmosphere.As teachers, as administrators, coaches, counselors, etc. they have an obligation to create a learning atmosphere that is safe, that is equal, and that is non-discriminitory. Those in charge of Columbine prior to the shooting failed on all three counts. They failed those children, they failed the community, and they are an example of the decline in modern American education.Is it any wonder that so many parents have opted to homeschool? The day after the shootings the National Homeschool Legal Defense Association was literally jammed with phone calls from parents who had finally made the decision. I was homeschooled myself and thank God every day that I had parents who cared enough to prevent me from having to be exposed to atmospheres like that. I was never a 'jock'. The only sport I've ever felt passionate about is surfing. I also like classical music, art, the theater and reading. I probably would have fit in quite well in places like Columbine. (sarcasm)Ayn Rand once said that "the only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to aquire further knowledge in the future by his own effort."Not to bash athletes. Some of my closest friends as a teenager were athletes. But to those who have the attitude that athletics is everything, that the jocks are 'untouchable' as was said in this book, who is it that these people think really runs this country and keeps America going? (Hint: the star jocks who care nothing about learning are not the ones you would want operating on you, or helping you manage your finances, or the people that operate multi-national corporations, or the people that run the weapons systems that defend our country. You want someone with a brain for that.)As much as I pray that nothing like Columbine ever happens again, I can't help but thinking that until we address the real causes of schools like that, that it's simply a matter of time.We're failing our kids, and it's high time that people wake up and realize it. Anyone who works in the school systems of this country needs to read this book.

Ok, seeing these 2 negative reviews is really making me angry.
I guess these people just can't stand that the truth has come out about their awful little school and the cold heartedness in their community both before and after the shootings.I applaud Brooks for telling it how it really is and refusing to let the lies about Columbine being a land of milk and honey continue.
It takes guts to stand up against a whole community like he has.
The refusal of certain groups of people in Littleton to admit the truth is astounding to me.
But the book is awesome.It should be required reading in schools.
This book gives you the real story from behind the scenes over the last 3 years.It provides you with a inside personal experience of Columbine from a person who lived it.Rob did a great job of helping to pull it all together.
I like how Brooks shared his personal memories of Rachel,Daniel Mauser and Eric and Dylan.It gives a more vivid picture of them as people.
In closing this book is a very important book .It has a message people need to hear. It has something for everybody.
Anyobody who follows the Columbine story will love it, but I think people who are interested in bullying and school violence will benefit from reading it.I recommend it to everybody.

Brooks Brown and Rob Merritt came to my school on Thursday to discuss the events at Columbine and what high school is really like. Brooks told us what everyday life was like at Columbine and I was in complete shock. He told us how students would bring alcohol into class and drink it right in front of the teachers. He told us how students getting "swirlies" and "trash canned" and beaten by other students with baseball bats were seen daily. I, on the other hand, have been in high school for over two years now and know many more people who have been around even longer and I don't know anyone who has ever seen any of those things at my school or at any other school. Sure I've seen fights at school every now and then, but nothing compared to what Brooks described to us. There is no way that anyone can consider Columbine to be a normal high school. Something is seriously wrong there and that's what Brooks was trying to tell everyone. I would highly recommend this book. It truly does give a real insight to what actually happened.

As a young (29) person who is still building a collection of classic TV shows, I found this book a very valuable tool. I don't like it that it says 'to present' in the title, because it seems like a ... trick to have people buy it once it's outdated.

Anyway, I'm going to comment first on what the book has, and the on the flaws.

The book comes with a list of more than 5,500 TV series. Each entry includes original and last air dates, cast and a synopsis, and often interesting notes. It also comes with the primetime schedules for all networks since 1947, a list of Emmy winner, and several rankings (top-rated programs, longest-running series, top 100 series, etc. The index is good, too.
The flaws: Information is not always accurate. I'd like to say this is occasional, but I have spotted several mistakes, and well, I haven't watched all 5500 series, as you can imagine. If I found like 5-6 mistakes in 30 series I really checked (even watched the tapes to make sure), I wonder what the real ratio is.

Also, there's missing shows (mostly from HBO and/or the last year, which probably means they didn't put a lot of work in updating the book).

Still, I think this is a great book to buy for TV fans. However, the information it contains can be easily found on the web (the list of Emmy winners, or information about shows, etc are freely available), so for the casual person who just wants to check a specific fact, it's probably not worth the money.

This is a comprehensive and entertaining guide to US network and cable TV series. It contains so much information (e.g. cast lists, synopsis, trivia, air dates) and will keep any TV fan reading till past midnight! An excellent book - I'm looking forward to the 7th edition.

I have been purchasing this book ever since the 1st edition in May of 79. While it's true typoes are made and other mistakes occur, they aren't serious ones, and are usually remedied by the next issue 3 years later. In addition, Brooks and Marsh include new info on old shows at times. For example, the 7th edition is the first to identify Wrangler Jane from F Troop's middle and last name "Jane Angelica Thrift". A must have for every tv fan.

That's how I would describe this book. I forgot everything I was meant to be doing. I'm a bit of an expert of reincarnation books, and it was so refreshing to read one that didn't lecture and didn't go over anyone's head. It just told the emotional story, plain and simple. I was lost in the characters. Is it true? Does it matter? I believe it is true - it's the small details that are so convincing. When an hypnotic regression is done badly, as in this case, it is possible to recall conversations. You have to believe in guardian angels to accept it all, but does that matter? I don't think so. An extraordinary story. To think that the author ended up presenting her own TV show, after the state she was in, is good enough for me. Problems such as she had, can't in my opinion, be solved by fantasy. So, on balance, yes I believe it.

Close your eyes, open your mind, and travel back in time. Experience the heart-breaking love story of Ryan and Madeleine Fitzgerald; also known in this life as Garth Brooks and Jenny Smedley. Feel the pain and anguish of Jenny as she relives the moment when Ryan and Madeleine are torn apart. Then read the passionate romance they shared. It'll make you cry; it'll make you ache; but most of all it'll make you a "believer". Even if you don't believe in past lives, you are sure to enjoy this compelling read. Excellent book!

I can't decide whether I believe this tale or not. It *could* be true.
I never bought the original version, but I recently went to the author's website...and I was so attracted to the new cover of this one with the extra chapters, that I decided to overcome my doubts and give it a try.
Like I said, I don't know if it's true. I hope it is. But anyway this has to be the most heartwarming story I ever read.
I found it uplifted me and made me feel good. That's what I like in a book. That and the way it was so totally 'complete', which I understand the original wasn't. I liked that too.

Grant here gives a consistently interesting account of his role in many of the major campaigns of the Civil War. His prose is clear and his accounts of battles and strategies quite readable, even to those without particular expertise in military history. He sticks to the story, making few attempts to even scores with his numerous critics in the Army or the press.

One thing that should be noted is that these 'personal memoirs' are in many ways remarkably impersonal. There is only a quite brief account of Grant's youth, and his wife, to whom he was apparently quite devoted, is barely mentioned. Grant tells the story of his career as an officer with increasing levels of responsibility, but says little about himself. Also, the memoirs end with the assassination of Lincoln, and do not at all discuss his presidency.

The edition I read was lacking in maps, which was a serious drawback, however it was a different edition than the one discussed here. Because so much of the book focuses on the tactics of specific campaigns, a good set of maps is a very valuable addition, and would be advisable to check for in any edition you consider reading or buying.

No less an eminent man of letters than Mark Twain called Ulysses S. Grant's "Personal Memoirs" "the best [memoirs] of any General's than Caesars." Having now read this outstanding work along with those of Julius Caesar, William T. Sherman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Colin Powell and H. Norman Schwarzkopf, I must agree with Mark Twain's assessment. For sheer honesty, humility, and simple but powerful language, U.S. Grant's memoirs are without peer.

Grant allows the reader to go along with him and live once again his experiences during the Mexican War and American Civil War. He interjects his own judgments and opinions sparingly, yet always honestly. Where he feels he made mistakes, he admits them freely, and his criticisms of his colleagues is always tempered by an obvious attitude of professionalism. The fact that Grant wrote a memoir of such eloquence while dying from cancer makes it all the more powerful a book.

I found this modern library edition especially outstanding. The introductory notes by Caleb Carr and Geoffrey Perret, while brief, are extremely informative. Maps and etchings from the original 1885 Charles Webster & Co. edition are included, as is General Grant's report to Secretary of War Stanton on Civil War operations during 1864-65. This appendix makes fantastic reading by itself!

I highly recommend this outstanding edition to all Civil War and military history enthusiasts. It is simply the best military memoir I've ever read.

I have never been much of a Civil War fan, but after reading "The Killer Angels" by Shaara, a historical fiction about Gettysburg, I was interested in following up with some non-fiction about the most important event in US History. This book kept me turning the pages from end to end. Despite its bulk (some 618 pages) I simply couldn't put the book down, as Grant's matter-of-fact description of the events that surrounded him was completely engrossing.

Grant was not an extraordinary man or brilliant tactician, his soldiers did not have the same obsession with him that the South held for Lee, he simply saw the war for what it was, a campaign against a rebellion. He looked at the entire war in its entirety, from battlefront to battlefront, and he repeatedly used that to his advantage. Many times he makes reference to deploying troops to no clear end other than to occupy an enemies flank, this often as a junior with no authority over the battle as a whole. Grant was a man of action, who realized he had to take a step in order to walk a mile. He took the battle to the enemy, divised clear and necessary steps which were needed to win the war as a whole. He was a general who did not just see the war as independent sets of battles, but saw those battles as a means to ending the Civil War.

One of my favorite parts of the text was watching the scope of Grant's vision widen. Starting with his actions in the Mexican American War his vision is very limited: he sees only the immediate battle, and his descriptions focus on minutiae reflecting his low rank. His vision escalates with his rank, until the end of the book, with the surrender of Lee, he sees and describes the entire army, and battles that would have once taken chapters to described are now dismissed in single sentences.

My one disappointment with the book was that it ended with the surrender of Lee at Appomatox. I would have liked to learn more about his actions after the war, and especially learned more about his presidency. I wish that there were similar autobiographies by other presidents, and certainly feel that this one elevated my expectations of all other autobiographies!

Favote Excerpts:

"It is men who wait to be selected, and not those who seek, from whom we may always expect the most efficient service." - Grant (page 368)

"All he wanted or had ever wanted was some one who would take the responsibility and act, and call on him for all the assistance needed, pledging himself to use all the power of the government in rendering such assistance." - Grant on Lincoln (page 370)

"Wars product many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true." - Grant (page 577)

"To maintain peace in the future it is necessary to be prepared for war." - Grant (page 614)

"The war begot a spirit of independence and enterprise. The feeling now is, that a youth must cut loose from his old surroundings to enable him to get up in the world." - Grant (page 616)