The beauty of Hank Davis' book is that it operates on several levels at once -- as only the best works can.

On the surface, Small Town Heroes is the story of an older guy with enough spare time and discretionary income to get in his car and truck around eastern North America checking out minor league baseball teams. Players, managers, mascots, front office people, concession workers -- each has a story to tell. These stories interweave to form the tapestry that is minor league baseball today.

On a deeper level, Davis' investigations facilitate the contemplation of bigger issues, beginning with the realization that, ultimately, all travel is time travel. It is fascinating to watch Davis collide head on with (friendly) ghosts from his middle 20th century childhood even as he encounters a new generation of "instant" stadiums hastily assembled from the remnants of discarded beer cans.

Deeper still is the responsibility of an emerging generation of elders to preserve and protect that indigenously North American optimism that baseball has always represented and that minor league baseball today can help us preserve. Our heritage was never predicated on the whims of spoiled brat millionaires and self important corporate moguls in luxury sky boxes. As Davis points out time and again, relief from such nonsense is only as far away as your local minor league ballfield.

My only regret is that Davis' book cannot go on forever and cover every location. As both a Royals/Golden Spikes and CWS fan, I would enjoy Davis' perspective on Omaha's precious Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium.

Meanwhile, anyone afflicted with parents, spouses or others irritated by "valium ball" who routinely admonish you to "grow up" and burn your bats and gloves so you can get out in the back yard and build them a new patio -- you need only hand those offenders a copy of Small Town Heroes and let Davis show them why such requests cannot and must never be granted.

Finally, if you're a "Field of Dreams" fan, consider this to be a book about multiple successful examples of the "if you build it, they will come" scenario.

This is an excellent read from start to finish. Davis really captures the essence of the minor league experience from the perspective of players, employees and fans. Baseball fans will love it, and non-fans will still be caught up in the many personalities profiled here.

Well, beat the drum and hold the phone-the sun came out today! We're born again, there's new grass on the field.........Well, I spent some time in the Mudville Nine, watchin' it from the bench............. Hank Davis has a hit! Reading Small-Town Heroes gives one much the same feeling as listening to Fogerty belting out Centerfield.

Davis does an excellent job of exposing the heart, soul, and emotions of those immersed in making a minor league team a reality. The struggle of emotions and the psychic battles faced by players, managers, coaches, mascots, fans, vendors, and other personnel involved in making the game "come off" are, many times, missed by the typical fan. Davis puts you "in the head" of the new kid just getting off the bus in eastern Tennessee. He then gives you a tour of the mind, emotions, and ego of the 27-year-old coming down from The Show for a last trip through the minors.

Davis's style makes you cheer for guys and teams that you have never seen-nor, in many instances, heard of. You feel the sense of urgency in getting the next hit or lowering the ERA with the next strike out. You feel the humanity of men ready become superstars as well as those about to plunge into "the agony of defeat". Hank Davis distinguishes and translates the subtleties of conversation in the dugout and batting practice that are concealed or ambiguous for most. His understanding and empathy flow clearly and viv-idly through to the pages of Small-Town Heroes.

Hank Davis leaves the reader with his opinion of the state of the baseball, and the minors in particular. He has an explicit assessment and is not hesitant about sharing it. He is the kind of guy I would like to sit next to and share a beer with at Graniger Stadium in Kinston, North Carolina on a hot August night!

Tours of small towns, minor league parks, and geography are accurately and realistically portrayed for the reader. Local flavor, as illustrated by Davis, can almost be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. He presents all the characters-those not likely seen by a visitor and those taken for granted by the locals. From "Mom" and the "Mountain Man" to the groupies, mascots, ground crew, hotel desk clerks, waitresses, and guards-"the whole cast"--Davis introduces you to each. Others have attempted tours similar to Davis only to commit error after error-Davis gets a hit!

This book is a must for those thinking of getting into Therapy Dog work & for those of us already there! Loaded with great information & good ideas!!

I have well-behaved and well-socialized dogs, and I wanted to share them with others--How to begin in Therapy work and do it well? This book answered my questions, resolved my concerns, and helped me get started. The author has written a good book, her caring shows through in each chapter. She covers well the basics (altho it's a shame she had to spend time on those), she outlines well the situations you may encounter with your dog in therapy work, and her training methods are gentle and effective.

To do something well isn't easy, and you must have more than 'good intentions'. Kathy details what your main focus must be, as well as helping you decide how you and your dog can fit in and be effective. Whether you are trying to decide if the dog you have now will do, or if you are considering another dog to get, if it's about Therapy work--it's in there.

To know something, to do it well, and to be able to share with others--Kathy Diamond Davis' book makes it obvious, it's a "You Can Do It Too!!" book.

I have been doing therapy dog work for about a year now and I have found Kathy Diamond Davis' book to be a wonderful "how to" book. Her insights and experiences help newcomers understand the therapy dog work and feel more confident in what we do. I especially like the way she explained the connection between a person and their dog. She explained how important voice control and control of your own emotions as a handler, make a huge impact on how people respond to you and your dog. Their are wonderful training tips also.

This book also addresses exercises and information for those with Lymphedema. However when you go to Google, Yahoo.com or any search engine.......this book does not come up when you type in Lymphedema. It does come up for a lot of other needs like cancer, exercise, health, disease, fitness, etc which is also what the book has in the way of exercise and information, but perhaps people with Lymphedema are missing out by not including the connection to Lymphedema as well.

Thank you for your time.

Users will find Sherry Lebed Davis' book inspirational and valuable. It is easy to follow with many useful photos.

I fully recommend "Thriving After Breast Cancer" by Sherry Lebed Davis. Buy a copy for yourself and a friend or family member in need. You will be glad you did.

Upbeat, inspiring, innovative, medically sound, and therapeutic in the broadest, most uplifting sense! I was privileged recently to have been present at a Book Signing attended also by many women who had been members of the Focus on Healing Classes, some of them for a long time period. You have never seen such a vibrantly beautiful collection of "winners" gathered in one spot to celebrate the joys of participating in the program described. Sherry herself is Positive Force personified, and her cup-half-full take on life shines through every page of the book, as it describes her wonderful program. An absolute must-have for anyone whose life has been touched by breast cancer. Buy it!

This book was so good it brought tears to my eyes. The autor was able to control my very thoughts.

This was my first book from the author. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. The grandmother gave Marissa a wonderful gift of healing. Truely a wonderful book.

This book was wonderful. As the story slowly unravels you get more attached to the characters. Definitaly worth reading.

I just recently stumbled upon Ken Davis, and I'm so glad I did! He is without a doubt one of the best comedians I've heard in a long time. His appeal crosses all age groups, and is probably one of the few I can listen to with my kids and be comfortable. Ken has a unique way of looking at life, as most comedians do, and I challenge anyone to listen to him and not laugh. And while he's weaving his tale of humor, he intermingles a message about God's love for us. I highly recommend this audio tape to anyone and everyone. It's laughter for the mind and soul!

As someone who is a seasoned stand-up-comedy-goer, I used to be under the general impression that Christian comedians were among the worst of them, doing mediocre acts that might occasionally elicit a giggle from their audience, although rarely more. And then I discovered Ken Davis.

This guy is funny! Everything from his facial expressions to his accents to his casual observance of the most inane but hilarious details of life made me laugh. I cannot hear him say "snowplough turn" enough! And to top it off, I was also incredibly touched by his message of the joy that knowing Jesus brings.

This is clean comedy that (for once) is actually funny. See this video now!

Awesome video in general!!! Any audience would get some serious laughs out of this. Ken Davis speaks about joy and love, and at the same time will leave you gasping for air between episodes of laughter!

I never saw my grandfather, Rade Talovich. He died several years before I was born.

After he emigrated from Serbia, he spent his life working steam shovels in the factories of Donora, Pennsylvania. He died suddenly in his fifties, a few months after the killer smog of 1948.

I have never visited Donora. After he left, my father, Peter, never wanted to see the town again. We lived in LA, about as far from Donora as you can get in the continental USA.

I remember the whole class crying as we sat on the football field during PE class at Pasadena High. We were sitting because the air was so bad we were not allowed to play; we were crying because the air hurt so much. We would try to see Mt Wilson, a few miles right behind our school. Usually we couldn't.
(Every time this happened, there would always be a couple guys who passed the time chatting about what kind of cars they wanted. Inevitably big powerful ones.)

My father never really told us what happened to our grandfather. Now, reading When Smoke Ran Like Water, I know more about it. Who needs Stephen King when you can get scared out of your mind by the solid facts about the air in your lungs?

Dr Davis states her cases clearly and meticulously. It is a pleasure to read her beautifully sculptured sentences. I burst out laughing more than once at her nicely planted pronouncements. (Also, in this era of baldly explicit descriptions, it is nice to read her respectful ¡§G-d¡¨)

The focus of the book is pollution, so there are a few avenues that could bear further exploration. She examines the important problem of breast cancer from the angle of pollutants. In Diet For A New America, John Robbins documented the role of eggs in causing breast cancer. Robbins also discusses the effect of hormones in meat animals on hapless children in Puerto Rico, a facet only lightly touched on by Davis.

The guilt of polluting companies is beyond doubt, and almost beyond comprehension. However, I was also encouraged by Davis's resolute foundation in democracy. She places a portion of the ultimate responsibility right where it belongs: in each family, in each individual's decisions about what products to use or not to use. Without this reminder, this treatise could slip into polemic. Now we have to make sure that each person knows the facts with which to make wise decisions.

Now that I have read this book, I am disturbed by an idea. My father, born the same year as Dr Davis' uncle Len (they must have known each other), died in his 60s, at about the same age as his mother, Mildred Kasonovich Talovich. Early generations of the family were roaring and raring well into their 90s. Could the toxic atmosphere of their town robbed my elders of decades of life?

I am not a scientist, but I have practiced environmental law, as a regulator, for the past 14 years. Sad to say, what Dr. Davis represents as the roadblocks to a safer and healthier environment for all the earth's inhabitants are, largely, my experiences too. However, this is not a book of all doom and gloom. In the end, on the issues where there are individuals who refuse to give up, or be coopted, justice often prevails -- we just needlessly cause damage in our delay to get there! Dr. Davis is clearly one of those individuals born to fight and lead! You will be inspired.

Dr. Davis' book is one of the most an insightful and insprirational books on enviornmental health currently available to the general public. Using anectotal and statistical information, a strong storyline develops that clearly points out the the tangled web of deception by the government and industry that has undermined the health and well being of Americans and people throughout the world during last century through to today. Anyone who has ever questioned why particular disorders and disesase are more prevelent in particualr geographic locations must read this book.

i've followed Ossie DAVIS&RUBY DEE for a long time.and this book is solid.overcoming Race,Class&Personal issues this couple have continued to thrive.i've followed MR.Davis's films such as Cotton COmes To Harlem.also him in Lets Do It Again.and Both of them in SPike Lee's Do The Right Thing&Jungle Fever.also hearing Mr.Davis doing Malcolm X's Eulogy Speech was moving near the end of the film Malcolm X.it's a powerful book hearing about Them overcoming so much and giving the world twice as much back.

I felt as if I were at a personal reading with Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. The couple shared their most initimate moments with the reader. They are a couple which has withstood the test of time and their love for each other has no boundaries. They have been fighting racism and equality for many years and are still very involved. You go Ruby & Ossie.

What a great glimpse into the lives of two beautiful people. I have always known these 2 were special but what confirmation!! A tenderly written life story. This sometimes hilarious book was a walk thru history and a true love story. I am changed.

in my opinion, olena kalytiak davis is the strongest young poet writing today. her poems seem wild and new yet steeped in a grand tradition. in a climate that seems to be veering toward simplicity, workaday speech, and mundanity, davis is fearlessly poetic.

I've never read a poet who writes like Olena Kalytiak Davis. I suppose if some crazy geneticist managed to meld the minds of Poe, Longfellow, Ogden Nash, Dylan Thomas, Gwendolyn Brooks, Stevie Smith, and Sylvia Plath, then a writer similar to Davis might appear, but that's about what it would take.

She uses language unlike anyone else -- as a playground, a laboratory, a room with rubber walls. Her imagery is idiosyncratic, but always powerful, always somehow just right. Her rhythms pull her words to and fro, clattering and clashing together, bouncing off each other, bounding and rebounding across landscapes of dreams and portents. With any other poet, I'd quote some lines, but that wouldn't do Davis justice, for her poems need elbow room and time for their wonders to accumulate. With any other poet, I'd tell you, If you like X, you'll like this one -- but for Davis there is no X. She is her own equation, sui generis.

Few collections of poetry have so much to offer, so much depth and substance, so much sustenance for the reader ready to listen.

Even though I've read Olena Kalytiak Davis' book several times, I am still amazed by the musicality of the poems, her keen observations, and the quiet ferocity of her voice. She is so eloquent, I lose the desire to write. Why bother when she says everything so perfectly? I've given the book to friends and they love it. I hope Davis will write more soon!

This book proves why a person needs to check out local bookstores when traveling - small presses often do not have the distribution network that good writers deserves. I live near Ft. Worth but found this book at the Pike Street Market in Seattle. I started reading it on the airplane going home and found it hard to put down. The paperback version is so attractively packaged that I did not realize when I purchased it that it was written and published locally in Seattle. Everything the other reviewers have said about the book is true. It is a very worthwhile and entertaining read. There is fuel for plenty of great arguments about "what it all means." Buy it!

Scott Davis' wonderful The Road from Damascus is a treat.
I have found it difficult to put a face on this area of the world, to actually get a sense of how citizens of the Middle East live, work and think. Davis gives the reader a ground-floor vantage. Introducing the reader to the Syrians, young and old, male and female, who sat next to him on rickety busses. Met with him at monastaries. And introduced him to their families, their art, their culture. The Syrian secret police are never very far from the author and rarely out of his thoughts. Which adds to tension that drives this journey through Syria and kept me turning pages.

Not a big fan of "travel" books, I found this one to be seasoned with the author's integrity, humor and affection for the Syrian people. Which made it most enjoyable.

Why would a Stanford graduate turned mountain climber/carpenter drop everything and, on a shoestring-budget, wander through the deserts of Syria? An attraction to adventure -- a quest. Davis takes the reader along as he visits the homes of Syrians,converses about spirituality, and visits sacred locations, all under the insidious scrutiny of the local police. Davis's narrative captures the ambiguities, fear, and exhilaration instilled by unfamiliar situations in remote places, while keeping a lighthearted perspective now that the trial is behind him.

Having lived around the boneyard for a number of years this book helped me remember some of it. My father would and still passes by alot of the airplanes today on his way to work or what ever. It was interesting to read it from an Englishman's point of view.

This is a worthy successor to Philip D. Chinnery's previous pictorial essays on the Boneyard (1987's "Desert Boneyard", and 1989's "Desert Airforce"...both out-of-print). The format is larger, and the quality of the photos is excellent. There's also a tantalizing mix of aircraft...you can hardly wait to turn the page and see what glorious old bird is baking in the hot desert sun on the next page. You really get a feel for the place, and you see more on these pages than you'd ever get to see in real life; mostly because the tours don't take you everywhere Chinnery was able to go. You'll see F-105s, F-102s, F-100s, F-4s, A-7s, F-111s, B-52s, even A-10s, C-141s, F-14s, F-15s and F-16s. Plus other, much older aircraft, helicopters, utility aircraft and aircraft types too numerous to mention. There's a fine section on the early history of the base, and descriptions of the storage process, too. I think you'll like it.

This book has much detailed information on the history of the storage yard at Davis-Monthan AFB, in Tucson Arizona. Seeing has to how I am an aircraft nut (Mostly military), I got a kick out of the fact that all the pictures were color! And the photos are almost all of aircraft. Rare aircraft included are the XB-19, B-36, RA-5C, C-133 and the NB-52E. The only problem is that just one photo of each of the above aircraft is in the book. In addition, the book also has details about how the aircraft are preserved in storage and what uses they have at the yard. Not all are scrapped or salvaged of parts, but some go on to civilian lives as firebombers or transports and some are sold to warbird collectors. For example, The Pima Air-Space Museum has many aircraft that are on loan from D-M (Then again, it is very near the base). This has to be the best book ever on the place that is mistakenly called "The Boneyard".