This is a good novel about the relationship between Sam Houston and Eliza Allen, who Houston married in 1829. The marriage lasted only a few months, at which time Allen fled Houston to return home to her parents. Neither she nor Houston ever revealed the reason for their breakup, but it destroyed Houston's political career in Tennessee and eventually led to his going to Texas, where he became commander-in-chief of the Texas army when Texas won its independence from Mexico, first president of the Republic of Texas, and governor of Texas when it became a state.

There have been a number of theories advanced as to why Allen fled Houston, but since neither one revealed the reason and the historical record is slim, the event will be forever shrouded in mystery. Crook's novel suggests a very plausible theory, and grows out of an academic research article Crook published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, reprinted in its entirety as an appendix to the novel. To Crook, the reason was not a simple one, and it cannot be fully appreciated without reading her book. To anyone interested in the mystery of their relationship, or in the character of Sam Houston, this is a very good read.

A very good historical novel

Huston and Masters give a well detailed and extremely fair minded account of the psychedelic experience, primarily via LSD sessions that were recorded by observers who were trained in psychology. The book covers the myriad aspects of "the trip" from perceptions of the human body to the deep religious experience.

The book is somewhat more scholarly than the works of someone like Timothy Leary but this is what is needed if this movement is to ever regain its legitimacy in the eyes of the general public. While it does not condone the illegal use of the drugs, it decries their suppression and the utter halt of legitimate research into these fascinating and important substances. Read it with an open mind, but remember that the drugs are illegal and therefore also potentially dangerous. That aside, the book will almost certainly spark your curiousity.

Brand new re-issue of the classic 1966 work.

If "The Doors Of Perception" was the most important work on psychedelics because of its influence, this then is by far the greatest because of its impeccable research, its far-ranging implications and its clear, lucid and compelling putting together of the evidence for the remarkable therapeutic and consciousness-illuminating value of LSD and other psychedelics (principally peyote). They don't, however, proselitize, and this is much to their credit. In fact, they go to some lengths to inform the reader that an active pro-drugs "for the sake of drugs" mindset is fraught with peril, and do so in a way that is both impartial and learned.

They're at their best, however, in their extraordinary recounting of the psychedelic experiences they conducted themselves as guides. There are so many instances where the subject, usually a person with a very intense psychological or emotional problem, arrived at a life-changing breakthrough, that it lingers long in the mind.

But the book is most of all a primer for their very lucid theory of the psychedelic experience and its various stages or levels. It is, in fact, so well thought out and explained, that this reviewer wonders why it had so little impact on the great body of psychedelic research, even after all these years. To me, it is the only theory that makes any sense and it's also the only one that could be used in a therapeutic setting so that the chances of errors or mistakes in guidance be effectively minimized.

James Houston, a noted glass designer (for Steuben) lived among the Eskimos as a civil servant for the Canadian government. He helped them organize coops for the distribution of their art. This book is about the sailors who are taken in by Eskimos after their ship sinks. It vividly contrasts the highly organized and friendly Eskimo society with the unruly and often cruel code of the European seafarer. Great reading from an author who knows! Also recommend his Spiritwrestler.

I read this book many years ago as a child on a recommendation from my father. He gave me his copy of the book before he died. The book's details on Inuit life and how it is affected by the inclusion of the sailors makes for great reading. This should be required reading in school and for any Sociology course.

This was a delightful book. I recognized many of the characters in the book in my own life. I commend the author for writing a christian fiction book. This book was not as I expected. I was prepared to read a book with a lot of scriptures with little substance. However, after reading this book, I found there was a lot of substance as well as scripture which I know has already changed my life. The author slipped in scriptures during normal everyday conversations which has made me realized, I can become a more effective witness for Jesus Christ in my own life. The relationships were normal and the love scenes great. This is a very well-written book and a must read for all Christians.

Sunday Brunch satisfies more than the appetite, it's an opportunity for female friends to stay connected also to experience individual personal growth. I enjoyed the clear crisp dialect; the descriptive language paints a vivid picture for the imagination. This book is full of colorful characters and well as colorful designer fashion. I was able to see one woman's faith in God believe in five women and maintain the friendships. All women have a certain amount of confusion in their lives. Black women have their share of difficulties in career love and religious conviction. The author makes use of characters with real and diverse personalities. I see the meaning of true friendship in this novel. One woman who, not only shares guidance and encouragement but also shares hope, intended for friends to heal and move on! -VE

(Dallas Club selection: April 2001)

This was a wonderful novel that showed the problems and iniquities that women face everyday. I appreciated the fact that these were real characters we all know: sophisticated, career-minded, materialistic(Jewel), dedicated, spiritual, self-absorbed, yet all were real. This story displayed crisis, conflict and tension that all 'girls' go through, but the most wonderful thing about SB is that it had a spiritual message weaved throughout the story!

Readers will love and identify with all the characters as well as the storyline. Everyday we are faced with the ways of the world and as the central character proves over and over again,by praying for and with her friends, we can survive the worst that life has to offer if we just lift our hearts in prayer.

If you don't do anything else read this book for it's spiritual foundation and to find out about banana pudding!(ha-ha) I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Jarrett's novel and would recommend that men and women read it.

Without giving away the end I'll just say it was refreshing to have an author reaffirm the fact that it is possible to have Happily Ever After novels. Bravo! Ms. Jarrett and I hope that you are already working on your second spirtual based novel.

Jack Olsen is an experienced writer, and this book reflects it, however it is not nearly as well done as many I have read, including a few of his. He offers exhaustive research into the Houston area and Police Force, far more than necessary to set the stage. Extremely distracting was his need to convey dialect by spelling words phonectically as pronounced by the average Houstoner instead of simply using a few idioms and phrasing to make the dialogue realistic. After awhile, it became painful to wade through any lenthy conversation. I also found the book difficult to follow, lacking continuity and direction.
On the other hand, the subject matter is quite astounding and he has researched it well. For that reason, I would recommend it to those who would not be terribly put off by the problems I've described. He is a good writer, I just think he could have done better.

Its always amazed me that this murder case has only inspired 2 books (Olsen's and a quickie paperback that came out in 1974 called "mass murder in Houston" Its every bit as good as this one.)Dean Corll has got to rank as one of the most horrific serial killers of the 20th century in body count and the sheer horror and suffering he submited his victims to.
My Only real objection to this book is that Olsen though a talented writer doesnt do a very good job of making the sheer evil and horror of Corll's crimes felt by the reader on any visceral level.Indeed he tends to make them seem almost mundane by his detached and at times glib tone.
At times he does seem to find the social and political history of Houston far more facinating then the crime and its aftermath itself.(far more facinating then the reader is likely to)such an exaustive treatice is a bit much just to put forth the simple proposition that there may have been something about Houston in 1973 that was conducive to social,economic and moral deadzones in which a Dean Corll could flourish.
To be fair Houston at that time was not exactly courting journalists that wanted to cover the murders.
I have seen Jack Olsen give far more penetrating and insightful effort to far less interesting true crime stories then this one.
This book raises far more questions than it answers about Dean Corll,Wayne Henley and David Brooks,Corll's victims and the time and place that created them.
I still feel that a wonderful and long piece of writing could be done about this case and I hope it will someday,but for now its either this book or nothing.

Dean Corll, a gay rapist and predator was responsible for the deaths of between 20-30 boys in the Houston area (a Houston neighborhood called "The Heights" was his major hunting grounds) during the early 1970s.

Corll, a worker in a candy factory used candy and promises of fishing trips to lure adolescent boys into his shop. Once he gained access to the boys, he chained them to a piece of plywood and subjected them to sundry atrocities before killing them. He prided himself on being a traveling mortician; he buried most of the boys in a shed nowhere near his property. Others were buried in secluded spots.

Corll's sick, twisted career is believed to have started in 1970 with the disappearance and subsequent deaths of Jerry and Donald Waldrup. Between 1970-1973 some 25 boys were discovered to have been killed by Corll. Two young men, Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. and David Brooks were used to procure the boys for Corll. The depraved candy man even bought David a car for his efforts.

Matters came to a head when Henley allegedly shot Corll to death during the summer of 1973. He claimed he shot the man in self defense. He and Brooks are currently serving time for their involvement with the candy man.

Although I am a big fan and avid reader of all Joan Johnston's books, this one seemed to lack the pizzaz of the previous three Blackthorne-Creed novels. However if you are as addicted to Ms. Johnston's books as I am then it is still worth the time to sit and read it. Although slow at some points it is still enjoyable.

This is my 1st book by JJ to read- the 1st of the Blackthornes and Creeds lasaga and I really enjoyed it. I am now in the process of looking for the other 3. I never was lost by not reading the other books first. The author did a great job of filling in what had taken place previously so I felt up on what was going on. There were several sub-characters and their stories but I didn't feel like they were taking away from the main characters. The story was great up to the end. I highly recommend it.

Now a little about the story itself... Luke Creed finds out during his first visit back at his mom's place that his old high school sweetheart, Amy Hazeltine Nash, is back in town. What a surprise since they have not seen each other since their break up 12 years ago. Both married others, had children, and are now back "licking wounds" from torn apart marriages. They are also both attorneys and are soon to find out that they are on opposing sides of a lawsuit. But Luke doesn't feel good about the pharmaceutical company's new drug that his firm is representing. There have been several deaths of children that have taken the drug (coincidental or cover-up?) and the fact that his oldest daughter is taking the drug complicates the matter even more. Just seeing Amy brings back all sorts of feelings and memories- Luke knows he has never gotten over his love for her and now that she is back and single during a stressful time of his life complicates things that much more but he is not going to throw-away a second chance for happiness. Now he just has to convince Amy of taking that second chance. Things get serious and even deadly for some as information is uncovered about the new drug for diabetes. A page turner for me... I hope you give it a try.

This is the 4th Joan Johnston book that I have read--the present day creed/blackthorne stories--and once again i was not disappointed. This book was as good as the others in terms of telling the ongoing saga/story line and keeping my interest in terms of romance, mystery, murder, and family relationships. I would recommend reading the cowboy, the texan, and the loner first, but she provides enough background to give you the family history as she tells luke's story.

It may seem kind of irrelevant for someone to write about America staring down the silo of nuclear annihilation, but Teretha G. Houston reminds us that the threat still exists...

The book gets high marks for its readibility (it took my about six hours altogether to get through it), the thoroughly plausible premise, and the strength of its main characters (Leggett, his wife Denise, and his best friend Manchester)...

The book does suffer, though, from some bad copy editing (several typos and misspellings in the text), some flat supporting characters, and some glaring technical faults...In technical fiction, it's the attention to detail (or lack thereof) that can make or break the story...

Hopefully, Ms. Houston's next work will have some more polish and accuracy behind it...But Armageddon at Defcon 1 is worth spending a quiet afternoon with...

Detailed sources of information, facts combined with third eye vision kept me on the seat from the moment I opened the book until, the hard covered ending. Never a dull moment, pictured verbal details, leaves this book to grow into an Award Movie Production. This author is very vivid within her detailed description in every categorization. Makes one think,just how we walk in ignorance during the last second of our lives, and not know who /what Govern. heads are given the power to end so many lives without even a mire thought, and how many special people give their lives for people around the world, for their safty, and not be recognized for their giving of their own lives. Indeed this book is more than a fiction, the facts are causing one to open their minds, eyes and hearts.

from the minute i started reading "ARMAGEDDON AT DEFCON 1", i couldn't stop myself, much less put it down. I turned each page in anxious anticipation of the next page. Ms Houston reached out and pulled me into her story and did not release me until the final word. her description of characters and events was outstanding. reading this book was like watching a movie.

Mosley, Walter. Gone Fishin'. Black Classics. Jan. 1997. 244pages. ISBN 1-57478-025-5. $22. There can be no better way to start off the year than with Easy Rawlins. Fans already needing a fix after Mosley's recent "A Little Yellow Dog" get happy, Easy and Mouse are back in this "prequel" to the series. This latest novel is actually Mosley's original Easy/Mouse story written in the late 80s but never released. Gone Fishin' follows the classic search for father motif-literally for Mouse and figuratively for the 19-year-old Rawlins who finds himself a very un-Easy rider on a road trip to Pariah, TX, to strong-arm Mouse's step daddyReese for money. Easy quickly lands up to here in trouble that includes witchcraft, fevered sex, a fleeing killer, and a few dead bodies. While Mouse is facing down his wicked stepfather, Easy must exorcise the demons of his own past in order to achieve a coming of age that's steeped in blood, guilt, and forgiveness. Not a straight mystery like earlier volumes in the series, Gone Fishin' is a more spiritual novel that reaches into the characters' pasts to reveal their souls. Mosley delivers the goods every time and Easy fans are going to eat this up. Highly recommended.-Michael Rogers,

Great detective story writers can rise to being solid novelists. Ross MacDonald was clearly in this category. With Gone Fishin', Walter Mosley has attained that distinction in a new way -- he has gone into a new fictional genre.

Although this novel has the usual crime overlay, it is really a novel about coming of age in the South as a black person before the days of integration. With few books available on this subject, I suspect that Mosley may have set the standard for other authors to meet.

For me, a lot of the charm of the Easy Rawlins stories is their historical setting in the more prejudiced days of the past. How does an intelligent, honorable black person deal with this? The stories are interesting for both what they say about society and for the great plots and character development.

This book, a prequel to the others in the series, does the same, but in a different setting -- far a way from Southern California.

I found it to be an excellent gothic novel, and encourage you to read it as such. If you open this book expecting another Easy Rawlins detective story, you may be disappointed. On the other hand, if you leave yourself open to what you find here, you will probably be rewarded. Moseley's fans need to live up to his talent, and follow him where his skills take him.

If you have not read the Walter Mosley books before, I suggest you start with this one. You'll make more sense out of the rest of the series. You'll also be less likely to be disturbed by the shift in genre. Anyone who enjoys this book will find the detective novels to be an easy follow on.

If you're looking for a true summer adventure--and you happen to be a fan of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series--don't miss this one. "Gone Fishin'" is a prequel to the other novels--it begins in Houston in the late 1930's where Easy and his murderous pal Mouse are two young black men looking for fortune in a white man's world. That leads them on trip into the dark recesses of the East Texas Piney Woods, where the city boys discover there's plenty of sex, black magic and killing out under the trees. Mosley wonderfully captures the dialect of that region from that era--to me, it had a familiar ring. To others, it may require a bit of concentration, but it's worth the effort. With "Gone Fishin'", Mosley has created a grownup "Huck Finn" style adventure that reads like a movie. If you're like me, after Denzel Washington's portrayal of Easy in "Devil In A Blue Dress", you see Denzel in your head whenever you're reading about Easy Rawlins. Imagine him as a youngster--not yet the cool sleuth he'll become later in LA--and you've got the character Mosley creates for "Gone Fishin'". The only bad thing I can say about this book is that I was finished with it before I wanted to be.

Though I was a little disappointed by the photo quality the text is very well done and I was able to use this book several times during research projects when quite frankly, no other book had the info I was looking for. The book is easy to use, quite informative and well worth the price you can get it for through Amazon. I think there is a place for this book in any knife collectors library.

I found this book vey helpful in my research! Any person who is involved in collecting knives, thisis a must-have book! I also found his website, where you can order other books about knives, and also subscribe to Knife World, which I did do. It is knifeworld.com.

The author did a great job explaining this! His books are always great! His first book helped me begin my knife collecting hobby. A lot of time and effort went into this, obviously!

If you came here looking for something erotic, look elsewhere. Amazingly, Veronique Vial takes an inherently sexy idea and manages to neuter it. And I don't think it shows undue prurient interest on my part to have expected something sexy from these photographs of (sometimes) gorgeous men going about their morning business. We get them looking tired, cranky, disheveled and ponderous, but not sexy. We get them making coffee and brushing their teeth and eating their eggs, but damnit, we don't get them sexy. We even get some of them still in bed and awaking from sleep, but ... well, you guessed it. (True--one of Dial's subjects greeted her at the door nude and with a full erection; the ensuing shot of him in bed -- presumably still aroused -- with a comforter covering his excitement is one of this book's tackiest, most gratuitous entries. The photographer thinks it's "funny now.")

So even if I'm a victim of my own salacious expectations, a better title for this book would have been "Fully Clothed Men Eating Their Breakfast With Wet Hair" or "Middle-Aged and Old Men in Their Bathrobes and Boxers Jonesing for Coffee." A celebration of the male body this is not. One gets the sense that the subjects -- young and older -- would have been willing to play, willing to expose more of themselves both spiritually and corporeally, but that there was an overall failure of nerve on the photographer's part. One gets the sense that she is the prude, not her subjects. And that prudishness or reserve or de-eroticization is all that comes through in the finished work. It's like you're looking for something that should be there and just isn't.

The book is more reminiscent of a Life magazine photo essay than anything by Bruce Weber -- and that's a major deficit for this subject matter. Maybe a male photographer -- straight or gay -- would have been more up to the task. That these women -- who had access to Brendan Fraser and Edward Burns with their guards down -- could so botch the job is a real shame.

Editorially, the book's a disaster. Pam Houston, who wrote the Introduction, gives a me-centric account of her own involvement in the project -- as if anyone cares. Whoever wrote the text accompanying the photos expresses awe when anyone -- including Frenchmen! -- speak to her in "perfect French." The subjects are described one too many times as being "warm." Unknown artists or movie producers or even gardeners are barely identified along with famous movie stars and aged potentates like Bill Blass and Robert Altman.

All in all, a technically accomplished waste that I myself probably won't even flip through again. Do I sound bitter? I am. I feel cheated.

I bought this book looking for more of the wisdom I had found in other Pam Houston novels, accompanied with pictures. Instead, I found a wonderfully pretty book of black and white photos of men, with a little narritive to accompany them. The men in these pictures are mostly people who I haven't heard of: not-yet-famous actors, designers, etc. The few "famous" men are indeed charming in their morning faces. The photographs are well done and very candid. However...

I wanted words. I wanted text. In this book I enjoyed very much what amounted to a short story by Houston and the dialogue between Houston and Vial. I also enjoyed the asides by Vial in describing the situations in which she phographed some of the men. It was typical Houston storytelling and candid thoughts by Vial.

In short, this pictorial is a very good coffee table book. It is beautiful. However, if you are searching for another "Cowboys Are My Weakness" you should look to something by Melissa Banks or another Houston novel. The pictures are very good, but how long can you observe another disheveled man?

These are wonderful pictures taken by a French female photographer of famous men before 10 am in the morning. These are not just actors but men famous for other reasons as well. She doesn't date the pictures and I believe some of them are from quite a few years back but that is not a detraction. Some of the men are wide awake and already working but many are not. They are all informal, to say the least! I don't like the companion book, Women Before Ten A.M., nearly as well but a man might prefer that one. The binding on this large paperback hasn't held up well but, even knowing that, I would still get it for the contents.