if i was going to scale this book from 1 to 10, i would put it on 8. even though i am this author's son, i find this book one of her best stories that i've heard. i'm looking forward to her future books and having a fun time reading them.

If you like adventure, monsters, and neat fairy tales, then you would really like Midnight Magic. It is about two boys that has an uncle that is an actor. He puts on plays for the boys every night. But one night when the younger boy puts his tooth that he had lost under his pillow, the next morning he finds something that makes him jump. I'm not going to tell you anything else, so read Midnight Magic, by Amy Gordo

The opportunity of unprecedented access to former URSS archives has produced the best book on the history of the MiG bureau. All designs created by the fertile genius of Artyon I. Mikoyan and Mikhail I. Gurevich are thoroughly presented with many historical details of their initial development. Even if the book covers all aircrafts and missiles, the thickest part of the work is dedicated to jet models, prototypes and experimental planes built after the II WW. In this respect, the volume is very exhaustive because it fixes many obscured points about production variants and aircraft designations, giving a clear picture of design evolution, previously blurred in the West for the impossibility of approaching directly sources of informations or files (there was a cold war, intelligence denial was a serious matter, do you remember?). Many photographs and drawings are published, some of them for the first time.

In the end, this is the most comprehensive book on MiG bureau, in line with Bill Gunston's style, whose dedication to excellency we all know about, even if the treatise on II World War projects is not so extensive. Highly recommended for Soviet aviation buffs.

This book is classic Putnam Aviation all the way. Detailed coverage of all production MIG aircraft through the MIG-29 series and many prototypes, with very detailed technical information. Addtional appendices cover weapons and engines. More technical than Belyakov and Marmain's MIG Fifty Years of Secret Aircraft Design, Gunston and Gordon's book is not as readable but far more detailed. Interstingly, the two books differ in a number of details, most notably in regards to Soviet aircraft world records.

I recommend this book to all fans of the Putnam series and to anyone interested in SOviet aviation and the Cold War.

Even though you won't find pictures inside this little book, that problem can be easily solved bringing a camera to your trip to Edinburgh, and/or buying some postcards. Inside this guide you will find a lot of useful information (anything you could need to know). The maps are very clear; it gives you some good advises about when to go to the Scottish Capital; and the prices you will find here are essential (specially if you want to find cheaper places to sleep). I enjoyed my stay there, and without any doubts I would like to visit this beautiful city again. You will be impressed with your first sight of the Edinburgh Castle, and believe me, you would like to read this guide from the start until the end.

We used this little book all the time on our trip to Edinburgh. We had a great trip, it sure is a beautiful city and nice people too. We found the restaurants and hotels recommended were good. We would recommend this book to anyone going to Edinburgh. We hope to go back for the festival one day.

Detailed and exhaustive book by/about Ichihashi who came to the US from Japan in 1984 at the age of 16 to study. He graduated from Stanford, got a Ph.D. from Harvard, became a professor at Stanford. He and his wife and son "relocated" to Santa Anita and then Tule Lake and then Granada (Amache) during WWII. He became embittered and an elitist during the war years, which is told in a very dramatic albiet exhaustive fashion in the book via his letters. Following relocation he and his wife returned to a very different Stanford University and environs, which he found very difficult to cope with. Very enjoyable book, personal as well as historical.

Though long and at times cumbersome to read, this is a valuable addition to the literature in Asian American and World War II internment history. Yamato Ichihashi is an all but forgotten figure who has left a written record of his internment experience as he lived it, making this book a rare and important piece that all students of the internment should read. At the same time, this book belongs to the body of literature in Asian American social history. Who knew that in the early 1900s, Stanford University had a Japanese American professor among its faculty? What kind of life did he lead considering his anomalous position as an academic compared to other Japanese in America and the intense anti-Asian atmosphere of those times in the West? How does knowledge of this man's life enrich our understanding of Asian American history and American history at large? All of those questions are satisfyingly answered. Ichihashi's writings take center stage in the book, but Chang provides lucidly written annotations and a bibliographic essay that make the volume quite readable and enjoyable. Chang allows Ichihashi's words to speak for themselves which allows the reader to get a very vivid picture of life in the internment camps. In addition, reading his thoughts about his circumstances as an academic, a professor at Stanford, and an internee offer rare and revealing insights.

Gordon Dickson has often been under-rated. This book,
Naked to the Stars (1961), is one of his stronger novels.
The challenges of "first contact" and the tension between the
"military" and "diplomatic" approaches are quite good, and very relevant to current challenges facing the US around the world. (I would have liked a "third" party -- a marketer/mercantile agent to have played as well.) Main characters are interesting, main character matures during the course of the story, and there are a few good twists to keep things interesting as well.

I've not read the Alien Way, but did read Naked to the Stars when it was out as a single book. There is nothing like Gordon R.Dickson's writing when he's at his best and Naked is some of his finest writing ever.It has aliens, it has soldiers and it has confusion and philosophy. The power of one of the scenes in this book, an alien child trying to say "bunnyrabbit" , has stayed with me for over a decade. - read the book if you can get a hold of it.

Joan has done an outstanding job with this book. This book is written for the Yorkie lover in mind. Joan's expertise from years of experience is absolutely priceless. This book is written for both the pet lover and the show lover in mind. This book is extremely informative and an absolute must to own!

This book is truly a wonderful book for any one involved with Yorkshire Terriers. It gives plenty of information on its history, so maybe by understanding it, you'll know your Yorkie a little better. Great tips on grooming, show, breeding, obedience, and many other things about your Yorkie. I think this is a wonderful book and wouldn't trade it for the world.

Gordon West, WB6NOA, is the ONLY way to learn the material for your FCC Amateur Radio License. I'm already a Tech with General Theory Credit and am well on my way to Amateur Extra! See 'ya on the airwaves!

I rate this book with a FIVE STARS because it teachs you everything you need to know how to pass your test. If your trying to get your amateur radio licensed read this book.

On analogy with another field of human pleasure, we can say that the brain is the most important piece of angling equipment we own. Some fishermen are of very little brain, others of massive. NOTES FROM AN OLD FLY BOOK issues from the latter species.
Let us first admire the sheer balls of the man. To commit yet another book of reflections on fishing! I mean, really Hedda, people don't do such things. They don't unless they can leap over that toppling pile next to your chair and bring something new to the party.

While it's easy to poke fun at earnest people (such as write about angling, there's no denying that Wickstrom is in large company with this book. I'm happy to report that he fits right in, while occupying his own unique niche.
That niche might be labeled "Sentimental Intelligence." Of course, sentiment is much maligned these days. Like any human faculty, it can, exercised in excess, produce a pretty loathsome babble, on and off the page. The current sentimental tsunami, Political Correctness, having swept clean our few remaining beaches of reasonable discrimination into a very mere pudding, only now recedes. Wickstrom bravely stands up in the undertow and dares to write with serious sentiment about his beloved avocation. Good on him, sez I!

Wickstrom's sentimentality directs itself primrily to the past, often the very distant past. He properly reveres the past and much of what he writes could be called history, in the best sense. That is, he mines the past for significance, for the odd shy fact no one else has noticed, the contribution of someone hitherto unknown or neglected.
More important, to my mind, he mines his own wide and thoughtful experience for those feelings we've all had but have mostly set aside in the press of daily affairs. Wickstrom boldly tells us about his past in order to bring life to our own. He evokes his personal history, not to parade its value or to wallow in regret for snows past, but to revel in celebration: again and again he creates history that illuminates the now, that offers his readers a chance to understand and celebrate their own feelings through their sympathy with his.

One last word: about the technical accomplishment of this fine book. Wickstrom manages with grace and vigor to create that most elusive quality of ggod writing: a sense in the reader that nothing but this writer's concerns matters very much. He does this in the time-honored way of the grat wriiters: he lays bare his own intense concern and bids us follow him. So indeed we do.
But this laying bare doesn't just happaen. There's laying bare and then there's laying bare. Wickstrom does the second kind, and skillfully. He makes sentences and paragraphs that display their content in shapes, frames, of clear, simple beauty. The best example I can give is this: I had thought to conclude this review with a quotation, a sentence or two lifted from the book that would both demonstrate the quality of his prose and neatly conclude this encomium. But I can't find a sentence or two that will consent to be so lifted. Everything's of a piece, each thought sliding effortlessly into the next. Effortlessly for us, of course, not for him. We know that effortlessness, how truly hard it is, how valuable when someone masters it, and how necessary that we love and celebrate it as Wickstrom loves and celebrates his new and ancient art of fishing with an angle.

Gordon Wickstrom is a WWII Navy veteran, a graduate of Standord with a Ph.D., a college professor, and a serious student of Shakespeare. For the past sixty years, when asked about his occupation, he said he was a fisherman and a teacher, in that order. With the publication of this book he can truthfully include author, a good author, to the list.
This is a elegant book about fly-fishing and so much more. Wickstrom has spent sixty years fishing in his native Colorado streams and rivers as well as legendary rivers in Ireland and the fabled chalk streams in southern England. During that time he has not only studied the intricacies of the sport but thought about it's connection to literature, music, Shakespeare, friends, family and other things that matter. Drawing upon his storehouse of knowledge and experiences he has written this small, remarkable account of anglers and their calling that is destined to become a classic. The book contains stories, essays, poems, biblical passages, and a song to explain who fihermen (and women) are and why they do what they do. Indeed, it is an attempt to understand WHY anglers do what they do rather than simply what they do.
In numerous short essays he suggests that given the "...vast, detailed, and powerful..." expanse of literature and its impact on anglers, that perhaps fishing is really the material expression of the literature. Thus, it could be that literature came first and then the angler. In his elegant, understated, sometimes humorous manner he summarizes such literature and how it has affected the sport in general and himself in particular. This is an interesting thesis that will give the reader pause. The story of his affliction common to the most serious anglers, the never-ending accumulation of rods, reels, lures, and other "essential" tackle, and how he came to realize that really the most important item was his 1937 Chevy Coupe, is a delight. The essay on the catch-and-release program now in vogue is a thoughtful treatment of the subject, both pro and con, and will give the novice and serious angler alike pause for reflection. Interspersed throughout the book are short stories about the history and characteristics of legendary flies that a surely found in many an anglers Fly Book.
This book will speak to the heart and soul of any reader remotely interested in the fly fishing phenomenon, literature, music, family, friends and a host of other things that matter in life. I am usually skeptical about the need for another book on fishing but this is a worthy exception.

It would be interesting to read this book alongside Mamet's "True and False." Chekov's passion for creation and exploration through the imagination, set against Mamet's scorn of invention on the part of the actor. Mamet dismisses the idea that character exists and that an actor can "become" the character. Chekov meditated in order to try and commune with the spirit of the character.

Two very different approaches.

In spite of the practical application of Chekov's ideas, there is a childlike hunger here for the imaginitive and mysterious that I feel is critical for any artist. We can appreciate that Chekov defied Stanislavski in search of something of his own, and here is perhaps the most interesting point: Chekov's method was deeply personal. He created his own approaches, and took bold risks in doing so. I most enjoyed the descriptions that his book has of how Chekov would create his own characters.

That any artist could throw themselves into their work with such interest and abandon is thrilling.

Again my mantra about acting books remains . . .

Reading an acting book must be taken inside the context of personal experience of either production or an acting class.

I value Checkov for the simple reason that, although he often comes across as nebulous and abstract, he stresses the fantastic and imaginative elements of acting.

Escewing working from the emotional inside out Checkov, a veteran of the Moscow Art Theatre, stresses finding the character through imaginative excercises that first engage the external elements of the actor's instrument namely in the creation of fantasy atmospheres and communion with the audience.

Building upon Jung's theories of the Universal Archetype, I find Checkov's bit about the psychological gesture and "living statues" most helpful in teaching, acting and directing.

In a professional world where gut wrenching, self absorbed displays of therepy induced emotion passes for true acting, I find Checkov's teachings most helpful in inspiring the true reasons many find themselves drawn to the stage: the wonder and excitement of telling an imaginative story.

Jack Gordon takes you through the details of being on the front line in WWII. It's riveting to the point where you can actually picture yourself there with him. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and wished it was longer - I found myself wanting to know more. This is by no means a fluff piece, but a true account of what goes on in the military hierarchy and between peers, as well as the savage brutality of war.

Gordon brings to life his first hand experiences from the shores of Normandy through Paris into Germany to the end of the war. I recommend this book to all those who have not had to fight in a war, as it gives the reader the opportunity to see real war from the front lines. The book is written in a way that might give the impression that this is a non-fiction book.

Unfortunately, the experiences were very true. Not recommended for young children(under 10). Would be a good book for a junior high school or high school history class.