I read this about 11 yrs back in 4th grade. I could relate to it because the school gym at my school had a climbing rope, too. This story helps kids to face their everyday fears. RIchard learns a lot about himself and even about the school's "mean" sub, who helps Richard face his fears!

After reading the Sound And The Fury,one cannot but describe Faulkner's book as a work of genius.It is so full of creativeness and passion that you just go on turning pages without realising.It is a story told from four perspectives, of the disintegration of a Southern family. Indeed the book presents a daunting challenge for all readers.Though difficult to read, the novel left me in awe at the emotions possible from a single string of words.The Sound And The Fury attains heights and depts of expression that are truly breathtaking, it is an unforgettable work that richly rewards the reader's efforts.

Ms. Giff gives insight on where she gets ideas on all of her books, primarily her Polk Street School and Casey Valentine series. She makes her characters seem so real! I loved how she talked about her cat, too. You really get to know Ms. Giff and you feel like she is the lady next door, an aunt, maybe, or a best friend. WAY TO GO, GIFF!

The first part of the book gives an idea about gaylife in San Francisco at the glory days. No fear of AIDS, just 'concerning' being a top or a bottom and while kissing a man flirting with the bartender.
Then death comes to town. Kevin, the author, just describes he is missing his friends and in the meanwhile is still hungry for sex.

This book has no real message. It is a dating-report of twenty years full of sex. Like a pornmovie, that makes it quite boring after a few pages. On the other hand, it is very honestly and maybe that's the reason that you will read it to the end.

Kevin Bentley's remarkable memoir, Wild Animals I Have Known: Polk Street Diaries And After, is set in San Francisco during the late 1970s and is based on Bentley's personal diary. In 1997 he was 21 years old, bookish, exuberantly promiscuous, laughably romantic, terrified new arrival. A young gay man arrived in the "gay mecca" that was San Francisco, a place where he would stay until his fortieth year. Here detailed are the gay bars, baths, a quirky old financial district book store, a funky apartment building on Nob Hill, street fairs, and side trips to Monterey, Santa Fe, and even West Texas. But it is the stories of love, sex, self-doubt, friendship, and unapologetic partying that comprised the basic elements of the gay lifestyle that truly grab the reader's total attention. Wild Animals I Have Known is an autobiographical "picture window back through time" offering a dramatic, vividly portrayed, and legendary gay milieu.

The entries that Kevin Bentley has chosen to publish from his "Polk Street Diaries" of that era are primarily about sexual adventures, often comic misadventures. Anyone who does not want to read about men having sexual encounters with men should steer away from this book. Like Renaud Camus's TRICKS from the same pre-AIDS era, or Ricardo Ramos's FLIPPING about that time in San Francisco, Bentley was finding out who the men he met were through sex: what they did, how they did it, and the places they lived. It was often the books (or the total lack of books), the recorded music (LPs then),, and the artifacts in a trick's room or apartment that made incompatibility obvious.

"Getting laid" was a focus then and there for gay men (and for most young men most of the time in other eras and locales). However, it was necessary to make a living to have a place to live and to pay bar cover charges (and, perchance, to eat, bhough that was a low priority at the time). The gay novels of Manhattan/Provincetown/Fire Island sex, drugs, and disco elide this, leaving readers to guess how the characters acquired money. Something I particularly appreciate in Bentley's book is his chronicling the difficulty of making a living. It also chronicles what the Swedish investigator Benny Henriksson dubbed "the risk factor of love" (reducing "promiscuity" and having unprotected sex with an HIV-infected partner).

Like the fictional inhabitants of 28 Barbary Lane, Bentley paid no attention to politics (gay, HIV-prevention, or any other kind). Less sexually adventurous than Bentley, and writing in a "family newspaper," Armistead Maupin in his well-known "tales" only hint at what life was like for gay men during "the golden age of promiscuity." Written at the time (though culled recently), these diary entries tells it like it was--without apologies, without shame, and without the chauvinism of "lgtb pride."

This book caught my attention because I grew up on a small farm in Mn. I could relate to many of the stories told by Sara. Especially the story in which the little girls go to the big city. I thought it was interesting that it was Sara's mother who was so tied to the farm rather than the father. I'm glad that her father got a chance to do what made him happy at the end. I'm also glad that Sara made peace with her roots and was able to come back to and love the place that she was so eager to leave.Although I no longer live on a farm I live in the heart of farm country. This memoir took me back to my own wonderful, but rarely easy, days of farmlife. It was the best place in the world to grow up as far as I'm concerned. What a pity that so few people will experience it as more and more cooperative farms take over. The decline of the family farm is a very bad thing for our country. Thank you Sara De Luca for preserving your experience for future generations. The only negative thing that I can say about this book is that I felt it had a rather abrupt ending. It lacked closure for me in some way.

I am a college student in L.A. who is from (and intends to go back to) Minneapolis, Minnesota. Whenever I get homesick for the midwest I pick up "Dancing the Cows Home" and read a chapter or two and inevitably feel better. I love hearing about her close-knit Scandinavian family and the dynamics of farm life. I can highly recommend this book to any corn-fed, prarie-loving midwestener!

My choice for Greatest American Novel of the 20th Century is this Robert Penn Warren classic. Unfortunately for Warren (and us), this novel got off to a rotten start. The New York Times hailed it as 'The definitive novel about American politics,' and doomed it to be shelved with other drab tomes in that otherwise unimpressive genre. The Times, sad to say, widely missed the point on All the King's Men.

Jack Burden is the point. Jack Burden, the politician's hack, makes this book. His is an evolution from disaffection to purpose, from carelessness to thoughtfulness. Willie Stark-the politician-is merely the means to Warren's greater goals. Warren originally set out to show, through Stark, the Dionysian allure of power and the grand effect it has on those who attain it. And he did; Stark himself is a great literary character.

But Warren fooled himself: he created a character much greater than Stark, even though he planned Burden only to be a sort of an omniscient narrator of little value to the novel except as the storyteller of Stark's rise.

In the end, Burden says (paraphrase), "This has been the story of Willie Stark. But it has been my story too." And thankfully, it was. The novel is brilliant, Warren is brilliant, and political books are still boring-but this is not one of them!

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren proves he knows more about writing than just the simple mechanics. Strongly defined characters and a setting so real you can taste the air provide the foundation for this literary masterpiece, yet the real genius of the book is in Warren's understanding of the reader and his use of style to convey a personal tone in the reading.

The main characters in All the King's Men are Jack Burden and Willie Stark. Jack, the narrator, was a reporter before joining Stark's bid for political power. Stark began as a small country lawyer who saw something wrong and tried to change it, but he eventually becomes a politician in the truest sense, so much so that the narrator can only think of Stark as "the Boss," an ominous title indeed. Accompanying these two men is an array of equally fascinating minor characters such as Sadie, a saucy married woman influential in developing Stark's position as a politician, and Sugar Boy, an Irishman so named for his affinity for sugar. Every character has depth and realism and can stand alone as a fully-developed individual.

While the characters are clearly an enjoyable part of the story, the setting is even more compelling. Warren's word choice is superb; he chooses to include and omit just the right combination of words to paint a realistic picture in the reader's mind without becoming too cumbersome. It is a balance few authors are able to achieve with such proficiency and yet another way in which Warren demonstrates his almost supernatural understanding of the reader. The best part is, it only gets better.

If characters and setting can be described as masterfully crafted, then Warren's grasp of tone is inexplicable. Simply put, the story truly speaks to the reader and could never have been as effective were it written any other way. Sentence structure, word selection, and dialect coalesce into a tangible atmosphere that projects a strong sense of familiarity onto the reader. The book is hard to put down because of this sense of familiarity.

Overall, All the King's Men is a book enjoyable in many more ways than one, with intriguing characters, realistic setting, and a true understanding of the needs of the reader. Even after fifty years, this book remains a classic appealing to all generations.

Within the confines of a bookstore one is often overwhelmed with the numerous topics and choices available to them. A solution to this problem, if a reader is interested in an engaging, magnificently written piece of literature, then take a few steps and find All The Kings Men by Robert Warren Penn.
The theme is one of uncanny importance and relevancy to this stage in American lives despite the fact it was written in 1946. The story is told in the first person, the narrator is Jack Burden; a right hand man to the leading political figure in the story, the "Boss." Interestingly, the "Boss" is based on the real life story of Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana.
The story encompasses Jack Burdens revival from a involuntary life, as well as the metamorphosis of Willie Stark's, the "Boss", idealistic political views to the lust for power and fame. Robert Warren Penn won a Pulitzer Prize for this book, and within the last few months I can not recall a book that would equal it in quality and purpose. Penn utilizes his characters to develop and provide insight on the issues of forgiveness, power, and corruption, and the consequences of leadership.
Within a bookstore there are many choices, and many possibilities to choose from, but in the busy lives of the average person today why waste the time just pick up a copy of All the Kings Men by Robert Warren Penn today.

Finally! A resource that offers real assistance for the enterprise IT manager. Whether simply contemplating a PKI system and needing to understand the fundamentals or actually planning for a role-out, the authors have provided insight that comes only with having spent many, many years designing and developing information security systems for the most demanding of consumers. This is not marketing or sales hype and does not promote a particular vendor, rather it offers valuable insight and subtle considerations in making critical tradeoffs and decisions about PKI details that must be understood if you intend to actually employ such a system. Building a successful PKI is an on going process, it is not a turn key event. Once this is understood, the reader can learn much about PKI components and the subtle differences between them and how they can operate together, or not. Any senior IT leader should have this book on their shelf as a key reference document. Highly recommended. Ed Hart.

Housley and Polk's "Planning for PKI" is an excellent reference for a variety of readers.

Novices to PKI will gain an understanding of the many issues that exist in deploying and employing a PKI. The book makes no assumption about the reader's technical knowledge level, providing a brief introduction to the underlying cryptography, policy issues, and motivation for the use of PKI.

Planners and system architects will learn about the crucial points that make the difference between a successful deployment of a PKI and one that only yields many lessons learned. In fact, "Planning for PKI" gives several concrete examples of existing PKI deployments and lists the lessons learned from those deployments. This is a real advantage for future deployments, allowing much time to be saved. The lessons learned alone are worth more than the price of the book.

Software developers will also find this book useful. In a single volume, it gathers the authors extensive knowledge of the PKI standards development in the IETF and elsewhere. Many subtle points about the PKIX RFCs are liberally sprinkled throughout the book. These nuggets provide insight into the intent of some of the esoteric topics in the RFCs and can assist the developer in producing an interoperable product or deployment.

The language used in the book is plain and direct. Where useful, simple diagrams and ASN.1 fragments are given. The ASN.1 fragments are well-annotated so that an understanding of ASN.1 is not required to comprehend what is being presented. (And for those interested in ASN.1, there is a brief primer in the back of the book.)

The real value of the book is the succinct (relative to the actual PKI standards and body of literature) gathering of the current state-of-the art in PKI into one tome. It covers the gamut from PKI history to future developments. Appropriate and accessible to a wide range of readers, "Planning for PKI" gets my hearty endorsement.

Planning for PKI is without doubt the Class of all books related to PKI. The authors have done a marvelous job of creating a book that walks the fine line of being interesting to senior management as well as Engineers.

For the CIO, it provides wonderful examples of how PKI can benefit your organization.

For engineers and techies that it provides the nuts and bolts of Public Key Infrastructure, (CP and CPS development, public key encryption ,Architecture, CRLs, Cross Certification, Applications, etc.)

It is truely a credit to the authors, and I would recommend it to anyone who has even the smallest bit of interest in PKI.

Faulkner's novel The Reivers is in my opinion his best work. Unlike many of Faulkner's stories The Reiver's comedic and lighthearted and at the same time it tackles and touches on many of the dark and not so comedic sectors of human nature. The novel is viewed through the lens of a young man named Lucius priest. Lucius accompanies his on an unsanctioned trip to Memphis with two of his fathers employees Boon Hoggenbeck and Ned McCaslin. Putting it lightly Lucius' traveling companions are, "men of the world" that is they protray a great deal of flaws and weaknesses that permiate humanity. They drink, smoke, gamble, steal, and womanize..... As Faulkner puts it they are, "practitioners of non-virtue". As the trip progresses Lucius soon realizes that he too has began down the path of non-virtue. As I said earlier Lucius and party are travelling to Memphis, but in The Reivers it is not the destination that is important to the story it is how they get their. Every leg of the journey find the characters with a new problem to tackle and a new display of what non-virtue is. As with many of his novels Faulkner takes the base human instincts good and bad and portrays them in a believable and poignant manner. The language used in the novels suits its characters and time perfectly and adds to the humor in some instances. The question you should ponder is does Lucius succumb to the non-virtue he is surrounded by in his travels? Read it and find out.

Have you ever read a novel or a short story and felt an urgency to finish it but also an urgency to never finish? That's how I felt while reading Faulkner's The Reivers. This Pulitzer prize novel concerns one eleven-year-old white boy named Lucius Priest. Through the mediation of his father's underlings--Boon Hoggenbeck and Ned McCaslin--Lucius comes of age in the art of non-virtue. While Lucius's grandfather is away, the three of them "borrow" the old man's automobile and embark on a bumpy journey to Memphis. On the trip, Lucius sees it all--whoredom, lust, theft, profanity, gambling--and struggles with these things in the context of a southern religious tradition. Though he has every opportunity to turn back and forgo the trip, he presses on and convinces himself that it's all too late. Non-virtue has already embraced him. On the other hand, Boon and Ned have no doubts of their lack of virtue, and when they see Lucius drinking from evil's muddy waters, they just nod their heads (don't think that the story is grim, for it's down right funny at times). The story is addictive, even though the language is rocky and convoluted at times. Faulker was no Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway; conversely, he was the ultimate practitioner of the compound-complex sentence. The dialogue was so real, especially with Ned and other black folks. I felt as though I were standing around the campfire chewing tobacco and thumbing my suspenders and talking about horse racing. No wonder this novel hooked the Pulitzer. It's quality stuff.

I remember reading Faulkner's Sound and the Fury as a college sophmore and swearing never to read another book by him again. I happened to find the Reivers in my local library and decided to give his Pulitzer Prize winning book a try. It is a charming book that tells the story of a stolen car, a stolen horse, a horse race, and the life changing experiences of an 11 year old boy in the course of a week. Although Faulkner employs colons and semicolons more than any writer, and his sentences seem to continue on indefinitely, the effort of adjusting to his style rewards the reader with a wonderful tale. I highly reccomend this book, and hope to try another Faulkner book in the near future. Maybe I will even attempt the Sound and the Fury someday.

Initially, the blatent sarcasm of this book is kind of annoying. But after reading the entire work, it kind of grew on me and I found myself enjoying author Barbara Holland's sense of humor. For example, one of my favorites was about Woodrow Wilson: "Historians say he was a great genius because nobody had ever thought of the League of Nations before, but this is probably not true. It's the kind of thing small children think up all the time, and their parents tell them to hush."

The only problem I had in the end with the sarcastic comments was that Holland was so loud that she sometimes came off with a "better than you" attitide. For instance, she railed Jimmy Carter for his southern accent. Perhaps I'm just defensive because I'm from the south, but the comments were sometimes quite disrespectful to our nation's highest officer.

Although the author spends an unnecessary amount of time talking about the presidents' wives (especially Mrs. Madison), she makes up for it with her witty closers at the end of each chapter. My favorite was Rutherford B. Hayes -- I'm afraid I really don't have anything more to say on the subject. I've already said far too much, and if you want to know more you'll have to go look it up for yourself. When youi find something exciting, give me a call.

This book only covers through Ronald Reagan, but it is a quick and enjoyable bedside read.

Satterlee@erols.com's review hit the nail on the head! This is the only book I've taken the time to write a review on because I think it is an overlooked gem. All you need to enjoy this book is a small interest in American history and the beginnings of a funnybone. Good luck finding a copy.

This is one of the funniest books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Special attention must be paid to the footnotes; they contain some of the books best lines. I only hope that the author will someday update the book to include Presidents Bush and Clinton. Since I'm not familiar with the author, I can't help but wonder whether or not she has used the same style in her other pieces. If so, they're probably a riot. Get this book. If you have any interest in history whatsoever you'll find yourself picking it up again and again.

"Untying the 'Nots' of Change" offers practical tools and strategies for weathering the storms of change at work. Patti Hathaway writes as if she is sitting in the room chatting with you. Her liberal use of very personal examples offers the reassurance that even "an expert" can have an off day and grounds her advice in real-life situations to which most everyone can relate.

The book is divided into three sections. The first focuses on increasing readers' self-awareness regarding their own reactions to the forces of change. She helps readers to recognize the stages of resistance, the related emotions that people experience when confronted with change, and how their behavior is effected.

In the second section, the focus shifts to communication and Patti provides a variety of practical strategies on topics such as "Building Trust With Your Boss," dealing with criticism,"Whining With Purpose,"and the power of forgiveness in the workplace.

In the third section, readers are challenged to examine their need for control and the impact this need has on their ability to deal with change. Patti encourages us to exercise control over the things we can, and to "let go" of what we cannot. She shows how the role we choose to play influences how much personal power we have in the face of change. The third section also focuses on stress management and encourages the reader to take an active role in mitigating the effects of stress through proactive lifestyle choices and a healthy dose of humour.

The part of the book that I most enjoyed concerned self-talk and personal use of language. Patti has learned that the language we use, both inside our heads and with those around us, has a profound impact on our state of mind and how others perceive us. The good news is that it is within our power to change, and when we do, we not only feel better, but can positively influence those around us.

In short, this book offers practical wisdom that will benefit anyone facing the storms of change. Two thumbs up!

After 19 years of working in the corporate world, I have learned that the only constant that I can count on is change. Patti Hathaway's book "Untying the 'Nots' of Change Before You're Fit to Be Tied" personally gave me an arsenal of strategies to implement at work in order to handle the many changes that are continually coming my way.

I have been applying the Personal Application Ideas provided in Chapter 9 "All Stressed-Out and No Place to Go" for several months and have found that they really make a difference!

An easy read with loads of humor, you can see that Patti has a sixth sense into what really goes on in the workplace. If you work or live in an environment that is changing, this book is a must read.

Patti Hathaway's book "Untying the 'Nots' of Change" is a must read for anyone undergoing change in their life, which is probably all of us. Although the book focuses on change in the workplace, many of the ideas and suggestions can easily be applied to our personal lives as well. Patti's writing style makes this an entertaining and easy-to-read resource. I especially like how Patti weaves her personal stories into the book. Not only does she open up to her readers about successes, she also shares with us the challenges she's faced. The "Action Plan" at the end of the book is of great benefit. It causes one to reflect on their life and where they are headed in the future. This is one of the best books I've read on self-improvement.