This book was...interesting. I didn't really think this was a great book, but it's an easy read. Take a day or less to read it. The book itself didn't really strike me as a good. I think this story is more for kids from kindergarten to around 3rd grade [at most]. I got bored with it quickly [I mean, I don't see why people would want to read about ther adventures of a stick with an nut head!]. This is just my opinion though.

This was one of my favorite books as a child! I read this many times in the attic of our summer home, looking out the window at our apple tree. I was recounting the story to my children the other day and we stopped in at Borders and I ordered the book. I'm so glad it's still in print. It's truly a great family-oriented read-aloud story - perfect for the younger set! My emergent-reader 1st Grader was able to read this with me!

Most dolls live a comfortable but unadventurous life. This was true of Miss Hickory, a little New England twig doll until the fall day that her owner, Ann, moved from her New Hampshire home to attend school in Boston - leaving poor Miss Hickory behind! For a doll who's body is an apple wood twig and whose head is a hickory nut the prospect of spending the winter alone is frightening indeed...The story has no true plot, but rather moves though the winter and onto the spring through a series of vinegettes, involving Miss Hickory and the problems her (literal!) hardheadedness can get her into, or of the animals of the woods and farmyard. All the stories are told with warm humor and an appreciation of the countryside and the seasons. Miss Hickory and the various animal characters are all appealing characters, and the illustrations are beautiful!

Hercule Poirot is startled when Miss Lemon, his "perfect machine" of a secretary, makes three mistakes in typing a simple letter. Clearly, something is amiss. Miss Lemon, on questioning, reveals that she is worried about her sister, Mrs. Hubbard. After spending her married life in Singapore, Mrs. Hubbard has returned to England a widow, where she is living as matron of a youth hostel in Hickory Road, an establishment that caters to an international group of students. It seems that things, "odd things," have been disappearing from the hostel, "And all in rather an unnatural way." Miss Lemon suspects it's something more than petty thievery or kleptomania, and Poirot agrees to meet Felicity Lemon's distressed sibling.

Although the story starts strongly with a colourful description of the students in the hostel, it deteriorates rather quickly into a complex micmac of red herrings. It seems as though Christie herself is not sure of the outcome when plotting her story. Of course, it is always fun to meet our dearest detective Hercule Poirot, but the amount of mischief going on in the hostel imposes some strain on the reader's patience as well on Poirot's ingenuity. Clearly one of the weakest novels to feature Poirot.

Poirot's perfect secretary types a letter with THREE mistakes in it! What could be wrong? Miss Lemon is worried about her sister. She is housemother at a student boarding house. Odd thefts are occurring and she's worried. Poirot soon catches one of the thieves, but it's obvious there's something sinister going on.

I liked Christie's take on the college scene in England. The students are many and varied, but each well-written. As always, she give plenty of clues. But as always, you don't know which clues are the important ones.

If you like Christie and haven't read this one, I really recommend it.

I absolutely loved this book! It was great! The only thing I didn't understand, and still don't understand is just WHY it's called Hickory Dickory Dock? The ending was so chilling I had to sleep with the light on! Poirot, as always, handled the case with the same patience and arrogance we have come to expect and love him for. This, along with Five Little Pigs, is Christie's best work as far as I'm concerned!

While there's a lot of his music that I've enjoyed, I've always been a little wary of the cult-of-personality that's surrounded Gram Parsons and his music. Ben Fong-Torres' biography about Parsons only reinforces this wariness; he had talent, sure, but he was also a grandmaster at screwing up the good things in his life. He had an enormous ego and an appetite for chemical recreation that seems upon reading to have been limitless. Who knows what could've happened if he'd partied a little less and moved music to the forefront of his life a little more? Fong-Torres may hold Parsons in high regard, but this doesn't prevent him from showing his subject's less admirable sides.

It also doesn't prevent him from showing that when Parsons really worked at it, what resulted was some of the best music that still resonates today. "Brass Buttons," "She" and the song that gives the title for this biography are today considered to be country ballad standards of the first stripe by many, and they deserve that honor. And if he wasn't necessarily the "father" of "country rock," Parsons certainly was one of the first to show that country with a rock attitude made for some great music. All you have to do is listen to his posthumous "Grievious Angel" collection for proof of that.

Fong-Torres spends less time on Parson's music than on his personal travails, but that's probably because the latter managed to undermine the former more often than not. That said, HICKORY WIND effectively displays the life of a guy who could've been a contender and, as it is, remains a lasting presence in the world of music.

A good account of Gram Parsons' short life, as well as the unusual impact he had on rock & country music. As a long-time fan of Gram's music, I found a number of surprises. I had heard he came from a wealthy family, but had thought that he had abandoned that life and lifestyle -- the book explained that he was a "trust fund baby" to the very end.

The definitive work for those interested in the short life and times of the original Rhinestone Cowboy. Credited by some as being the one who popularized the genre of Country Rock music, Gram disdained this term for his own "Cosmic American Music". Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Gram was probably cursed by genetics. His mother's longstanding bouts with the twin evils of alcohol and depression, and his father sharing those traits, conspired to doom a talent that is recognized more today than when he lived. An impetuous young man, Gram Parson's talent was unquestionable. His inability to manage that talent, while immersing himself in the most hedonistic pursuits of contemporary life, was a large part of his downfall. The story told within these pages is likely to move the reader; not so much in a sympathetic way, as Gram didn't evoke sympathy. He does, though, appear to be a product of his upbringing, which unfortunately led him down a path of self-destruction that ended in his untimely death in a high desert motel. This book reads well, written by an author who always pays attention to detail without inserting his personal judgement.