Ray Blackwell's first novel is a Mark Twain type adventure story involving a group of innocent adolescent boys being, well, boys. Blackwell's story is chock full of delightful characters and hilarious anecdotes, all masterfully woven together with just the right amount of wit, philosophy and sarcasm. This book is a real winner.

At first blush, it would be tempting to view "The Harmless Hours" as another "child coming-of-age" story, and compare it to Steven King's "The Body" (perhaps better known by its movie title: Stand By Me.) But author Ray Blackwell's book is actually a far deeper, funnier and rewarding work.

"The Harmless Hours" is filled with the dialogue of soon-to-be teenage boys, expounding on their misconceptions of the world, told through the perceived masculinity of swear words. It is both spot-on accurate and hysterically funny. (Among other gems, you will learn what it means to call someone a "homer tortoise shell.") While the setting ostensibly makes the book a period piece, taking place in a matter of days in 1944, both dialogue and situations are timeless. The hero also narrates for us in first person, with a strength of voice that reminds me of Holden Caufield, only with better parents.

An argument could be made that this is really a "coming of age" story for America, which in 1944, was growing from gawky teenager to mature superpower. There is also a very strong undercurrent of a spiritual coming of age story. At the very least, this should become a textbook on how to write dialogue. But I'll save expoundations on those subjects for others. The real reason to read "The Harmless Hours" is because it's very, very funny.

All of us at one time or another would love to revisit the innocence of our childhood. This book allows you to do just that. It's a funny and well-written story from a great storyteller.

Ray Jones is among the best lighthouse photographers working today. He provides some of his best photos for a book in which writer John Grant provides a good narrative and history of lighthouses in general. This book strikes a good balance between information and photography.

I picked up this book without having seen the companion PBS series, but now I'd really like to see it. The book presents a very nice story for each lighthouse visited, discussing more of the people stories that go along with the history of the houses themselves. A really nice find for lighthouse fans.

It is very informative and provides much detail about all the lighthouses. There are numerous pictures and they are absolutely great. This book also gives you very good directions on how to travel to each of the lighthouses some of which are very remote. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

The recipes make soup a "souper" meal, a gourmet delight as well as comfort food.The author's notes are particularly helpful for menu planning.

I LOVE this cookbook. I'm a huge soup fan and I collect soup cookbooks. This is the best one I have ever seen. My favorite recipe is the marinated steak soup. An amazing combination of flavors you just have to experience to believe.

Every soup I have made from this book has been wonderful. The combinations of flavors is incredible. I particular liked finding some of my favorite restaurant soups presented here. I attended a soup cooking class by Ray Overton and decided that I needed this book! It has been a great purchase.

This is one of the best McDonald's collectibles books I've seen! This book includes detailed color pictures, very accurate descriptions, release dates, and an estimated value for a wide variety of McDonald's figures including premuims released in the United States and Internationally. A very thorough and informative guide to McDonald's fast food toys!

I love this book. I looked at this book in a bookstore. This books has all the toys from 1970 to 1997. I aslo love eating at McDonalds.

Good book, although they could devote a whole volume to Grimace

This book is a wonderful explanation of the workplace that we all work in. It explains the dynamics of the workplace relationships, focusing on the relationship between management and employees. It gives great tips and examples on how and why these relationships work or don't work. It combines Dr.Ray's practical experience working with companies and his academic background in psychology. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone, whether they are in business or any other profession where they have co-workers or a boss. It's a very easy and quick read.

The Performance Culture goes below the surface of our feelings and exposes what we truly believe about ourselves and the way in which we work. It gives root to all the things we learned and intrinsically/instinctively know about what it takes to be the best. It is profound in its simplicity, example after example, step-by-step, to the point that even the most competitive among us can rechannel our natural urgencies.

If you buy only one book this year, make it this one.

Any company, regardless of size, should strive to create a culture that encourages and breeds maximum performance from its employees. Dr. Ray's The Performance Culture will clearly define the end goals necessary to create that culture. This book not only gives top level managers a noteworthy goal to shoot for but it also gives them the roadmap for achieving that goal. Dr. Ray not only does a wonderful job formulating complex theories into writing that anyone can comprehend, but he presents these ideas in ways that are easily translated into action. The theories and practices covered in this writing would be welcome additions to any organization and the presentation style of the material makes the read not only beneficial but enjoyable as well.

Programming Web Services with Perl is principally a book on implementing solutions using XML-RPC and SOAP in Perl. It also covers complementary and alternative standards such as WSDL, UDDI, and REST in some detail. And on the periphery, it finishes with a whirlwind tour of developing message routing, alternative data encoding within XML, security, transactions, workflow, internationalization, service discovery, extension, and management techniques and specifications.

The book assumes the reader will have the knowledge of an intermediate level Perl programmer. I.e., the reader is assumed to have a working knowledge of references, data structures, and object-oriented Perl. On the other hand no previous knowledge of XML, XML-RPC, SOAP or XML related technologies is required.

It should also be mentioned that both of the authors Randy J. Ray and Pavel Kulchenko are also the principle developers of the most popular XML-RPC and SOAP Perl modules: XML::RPC and SOAP::Lite respectively. That said, the book is not a soap box for the authors to tout the merits of their tools.

Rather, it is a practical book which starts with grounding fundamentals. Readers should walk away with a core understanding of XML-RPC and SOAP and not just a particular tool set for working with them. The authors examine the alternative XML-RPC and SOAP tools, illustrate how they are used, and give practical and even handed reasons why their modules should be preferred. Which comes down to issues of features, active development, support, and the amount of work required to code to a particular interface. They then settle down to a comfortable and thorough guide to XML::RPC and SOAP::Lite.

The topics and issues are illustrated throughout using real world web services. For example creating an XML-RPC client for O'Reilly's Meerkat news wire, or a SOAP client to covert use.perl.org's journal stream to RSS. Code is presented to the reader filtered down to highlight each particular issue as it is discussed. This is nice in that it avoids listing slight variations of the same code multiple times, but on the down side it can also leave the reader flipping back and forth to reassemble an example in their head. Full code for each example is provided in the appendices. And all of the example code may be downloaded from O'Reilly at [their web site].

All-in-all, the book is a thorough practical introduction to working with XML-RPC, SOAP and related technologies. When I started reading the book, I was a bit disappointed to see that it only covered XML-RPC and SOAP related services. When I finished, I was impressed with how very much information they'd managed to pack into so few pages.

And yet, I was left wishing there'd been a more through coverage of interoperability issues between other SOAP implementations and things like custom de-serializers. To be honest interoperability and de-serialization are mentioned, and the authors do an excellent job of referring the reader on to sources for continued reading on most other topics.

The book does an admirable job balancing content, length, and information density. Not to mention an excellent job delivering the information that will still be relevant years and not just weeks from the date published. Most of the topics I'd wished to see covered in more depth are those that are still developing and consequently most likely to become quickly dated. In short a well balanced practical guide to applying XML-RPC and SOAP to solve problems.

And yet this book covers every aspect of web service development utilizing perl. As a long time user of the original Frontier::RPC2 module, things have come a long way, and with that greater complexity, the concepts have grown in scope considerably. This IS the book that you want to read if you REALLY want to understand SOAP and XML-RPC. From the XML DTD's to implementation code (either standalone applications or utilizing mod_perl) this book covers everything in between. In all it is a welcome addition to the O'Reilly family of Perl books.

As with all O'Reilly books there's a great intro to the technologies. They take you through how it works, not just how to deploy some code. When you get to the XML-RPC modules, they don't force a solution on you, but give a great tour of what's available and let you pick. For me, the highlight was the intro to Randy J. Ray's RPC::XML modules (he's also one of the authors). I've been fighting with getting the 'system.*' handlers hacked in with other aproaches and it was great to see someone had already figured out such a clean approach. (Which is something since Perl can get reeeaaal ugly!) This book has saved me many days of wasted development.

Barry Hannah is the kind of writer people either love or hate; he doesn't leave a lot of middle ground. But "Ray" is a novel that should have wide appeal--it's clever, insightful, original, and quick. (Even those who won't like won't be able to say that it wasted a lot of their time.)

This was the second work of Hannah's that I ever read (the first was "Airships"), and it made me a fan for life.

Near the end of "Ray," Mr. Hooch is "beating [up] Shakespeare" with his poetry. Hannah doesn't beat up Shakespeare, but he musters up a fierce, admirable assault: "Sabers, gentlemen, sabers!" The novel isn't perfect -- it isn't Shakespeare -- but the writing is so alive, so strong, that it feels right filthy to root in the muck for a word of criticism. "Ray" is music.

I just read Ray last night, it took maybe 2, maybe 3 hours (I wasn't exactly timing myself). I didn't put the book down or stop reading except to read particular passages out loud to my girlfriend. Anyway, fun, bizaare, wise. Sometimes the flashbacks were a little "Slaughter House Five"ish, but the writing is clearly above Vonnegut in terms of inventiveness and restraint. Hannah knows when to stop writing and let what he has left on the page open up entire new worlds, as opposed to explaining himself and narrowing the possibilities. The narrator, Ray, refers to himself often in the third person, like many athletes such as Rickey Henderson do ("Ricky be Ricky" "Ray comes from a good Christian family, I say"). Great read. Not quite O'Connor or Faulkner, but maybe as close as we're getting right now. Made me excited about fiction and the English language.

I have borrowed this book from a friend, it is the best and I hope I will find it to buy :)

I read many books about Delphi programming. This one is the ONLY one I would recommend to understand WHAT IS Delphi.

Lischner gets into areas of both Delphi 1.0x and 2.0x that are not usually seen. His understanding of the internals of the VCL and Delphi's Tools Interface make this book a must-have for any serious Delphi developer

How refreshing to find a cookbook that is written by a real person with a sense of humor and and understanding of the importance of enjoying ALL your time - even that in the kitchen. The recipes are easy to follow. I love the options that are included in so many of them. At my last gathering, I even asked 2 close friends to come early & we used the recipes to prep for the party later... great time. My compliments to the author.

This cookbook is one in a million! I enjoy all of the recipes because they are easy and different. I love your humorous approach! Best cookbook around!

You just have to buy this book for yourself and for gifts! I have given this book to several friends and relatives that love to collect different and unusual, yet functional, cookbooks and this one TAKES THE CAKE! I heard it has been entered into several contests! No doubt. Since I personally don't spend alot of time cooking, I really appreciate the quick recipes which are so funny and the text is extremely original. I love the graphics! If anyone likes unique cookbooks with a sense of humor, this is the one to buy! I was browsing through Cooking Light magazine when I ran across the ad and I bought several on a whim and have since ordered another 10 for perfect stocking stuffers! Thanks to the clever author for making my time in the kitchen so much more FUN! Any chance for a second ...Should the Cook be Laughing, Too?

Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones produce the best lighthouse travel guides available. This one is no exception.

First, this book is chocked full of Bruce Roberts' beautiful photographs of the lighthouses in this region. The photographs are nothing less than SPECTACULAR! Combined with the revised and updated information on each makes this regional lighthouse guide a requirement you won't want to be without whether you're visiting the region or a life-long resident. The text contains full, rich descriptions of each lighthouse, too.

I have many lighthouse books and all of Bruce Roberts' and Ray Jones' regional guides. I've read them all and used most of them while traveling. I've found them to be first rate, an excellent choice for people who want everything lighthouse between two covers. A joy to look at and informative to read.

There are directions and other info for finding and visiting lighthouses. They do not always show all lights for a given area. The photos are all color. I own 3 of these books. There are not many other guide books out there so if you are looking for guide books these are good to have. Since there are so many books in this series I thought I'd help people find them easier. This is the series.
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American Lighthouses
California Lighthouses
Eastern Great Lakes Lighthouses - I own this one
Western Great Lakes Lighthouses - I own this one
Southeastern Lighthouses - I own this one
Southern Lighthouses
New England Lighthouses
Mid Atlantic Lighthouses
Gulf Coast Lighthouses