I have always enjoyed Michaels books, but this last one was not one of his better efforts. It was boring next to his other novels. I wish he would bring back Branco & Nicole in a big way. These are great characters that I miss. The book is a good read, but not as much as his older ones.

Although I am a fan of Grant Michaels' Kraychik series, I must admit that this one (Dead As A Doornail) left me a little hammered. The writing was filled with its wonderful wit and bite, but I felt the actual mystery was a bit befuddled. The characters were not as interesting as in past novels, and the "whodunit" was kind of a "who cares." This is not said to discourage the established Kraychik fan. Rather, to alert those about to join the club to read the earlier novels first (and in order) before picking up this title. All in all, it is a good read. But I hope Grant Michaels finds the spark from the first three titles and makes another bonfire.

Being from the Boston area and having gone to college in Boston, I could identify with all the places and the storyline. I especially like the guessing who did it. I have enjoyed all of Grant Michaels' books. I am eagerly awaiting the next one.

Although encouraging to new grant writers, too much of the book is reprinted information from other sources (web etc.). If I had paid $30.00 for the book and disk (with templates also downloadable from the web) I would have been more satisfied. However, it is not worth the high price.

Bev's book provides a sincere grantseeker with the tools neededto write a winning proposal and see positive results. The book takesyou step by step through the procedure and the process for getting thejob done.

Bev Browning is well recognized as one of the expert grant writers for non-profits--from schools to arts & cultural organizations to healthcare to social service & government agencies. Her expertise ranges from the Common Grants Applications to federal & state RFPs. The book offers her knowledge in a highly readable, easy to follow format. I have collaborated with Bev on many projects and she is a contributor toThe Distance Learning Funding $ourcebook: Your Guide to Foundation, Corporate & Government Support for Telecommunications & the New Media (4th edition, 1999).

this book was good for the firt 6 chapters it was intersting but from than on he was saying the same thing stay out of the joint dont get caught and the fact that he is callin the people that are readin the book stupid is just outraugosley rude he thinks he knows everything well owell its not my fault u were sellin drugs in the first place i give it 2 out 5 stars

For a program our school called "Aware Day", Ron came to speak and I was introducing him to the kids before he spoke and just to look in the the crowd at the kids and hear the kids talk to him after it was over really was amazing. In just an hour and a half he turned a lot of kids around and really made them feel good about themselves and think twice about the descions they were making. Everyone really should read this book in a gang or on drugs or not.

I was a friend of Ron and Linda (his future wife) back in his high school and gang days, but I never knew just how bad Ron had it at home. It was really sad to read about how it was for him and his brothers, but it helped me to really understand how kids living in that kind of environment struggle to make it in the world. Amazing, too, that Ron could not only have survived the drug-dealing & drug-addicted life, but emerge to help others find a way out of that life. I recommend this book to anyone who needs to find their way out. And anyone else who just wants to read an interesting and gripping story. And, I commend and congragulate Ron for all he's managed to accomplish.

I have suffered with IBS for many years. This book offered simplistic advice that any reasonable person would have tried already, such as visualization. Save your money, do not buy this book.

IBS can be a horrible thing to suffer with and unfortunately a lot of books written on the subject can even be worse. In my search for books on IBS I found a lot of them written by doctors to be unsympathetic and confusing. That was until I found Barbara Bradley Bolen's book on IBS. Her book was written in a clear and friendly manner and it was a pleasure to read. Also, Bolen writing was very sympathetic to the disease of IBS.

One of the things I liked so much about this book was the case studies that she put in. For example when she was talking about the importance of doing a self monitoring sheet to help spot patterns in your IBS she related what she was talking about to one of her patients. It was helpful because it makes you realize that you are not alone with dealing with IBS. She also has many different activities in her book that can help you spot patterns in your IBS, as well as activities to help you calm down, cope and relieve stress. This book was very helpful in understanding, dealing with, and hopefully reducing the symptoms of IBS.

I recommend this book to those that are suffering from IBS and also those who know and love somene that has it and want to understand more about what it is really like. A great buy.

After buying, reading and giving away many, many books on Irritable Bowel Syndrome, I was blessed to have found this one. No recipes in this one, this book makes clear the powerful correlation between IBS and anxiety, IBS and stress, IBS and depression, IBS and fear. After spending a week of increasingly severe pain accompanied by increased anxiety about the pain (or was it increasing pain about the anxiety?)and winding up in the local ER, I realized that I needed to help myself by calming myself. This book tells how. In compassionate, orderly chapters, Barbara Bolen teaches how to truly "break the bonds of IBS." Hooray for her! Hooray for all of us!

Porter writes as if the North was never wrong, its commanders never fooled or mistaken, its armies never disspirited, and that the Union campaigns always succeeded. We all should know better. According to Porter, every time the Confederates didn't hold a field they were "repulsed handsomely." Every time the Union didn't hold the field, they were merely "compelled to retire." You will see these gross aberrations throughout this stale and shoddy work. His characterizations add nothing fresh about the famous personages surrounding him, and certainly his military perspective offers less in quality of insight than the diary of any Union private. There are many great books on the Civil War by the figures who fought it: this one can wait until you've exhausted everything else.

I read Grant's "Memoirs" on the recommendation of a cigar-chomping friend. It was a revelation. I began reading with ambivalence about Grant. By the time I was finished, he became a hero for me, for entirely unexpected reasons -- the clarity of his writing, for one; his modesty and straight-forward manner, for two others. I followed it with other volumes about Grant (including Bruce Catton's set) but it wasn't until another friend whom I discovered shared my feelings for Grant's genius recommended Horace Porter's "Campaigning with Grant" that I discovered an equally satisfying successor. Horace Porter's "Campaigning With Grant" is the next best thing to Grant's "Memoirs." Again, the clarity of writing, the descriptions of Grant's decision-making process, the anecdotes from the Wilderness Campaign on through the sieges of Richmond and Petersburg, and on to Appomatox come as a revelation -- at least, in part, when you realize this is one of those "source documents" all the great historians of the era have relied upon.

Apparently Porter assisted Grant in writing his "Memoirs" although there is not much (if any) dispute that Grant wrote them himself. While this may explain some of the similarity in style and substance, it probably says more about "like minds" than anything else. No matter. This is well worth the read and very rewarding.

If you had to read one book about U.S. Grant as a man this is it. Horace Porter knew Grant quite well and thought he book was written in 1896, it still retains a vibrancy and modernity to it. Porter wrote the book in an almost conversational style which is entertaining and interesting. Do you want to know how much Grant weighed or how tall he was? What kinds of foods he liked? How about a description of him necking with his wife in full view of Lincoln and his staff officers? Look no further than between the covers of this remarkable book. I guarantee you won't be able to put it down!

While I agree with the people who have already reviewed this book that the pictures are very good, and the colors combinations are good, I would not say that the authors were guided by the concepts of small spaces that are in the real world.
Most of the rooms depicted were hardly the 12x13 bedroom one finds in real homes, or the 8x10 real people kitchen.

Most of the rooms looked as though there were very few limitations of space or budget....Hardly what I expected from the title.

Color is a powerful way to set a mood, shift an outlook and transform a space. When thinking about colors in a living environment, it's important to decide what atmosphere--what feeling--you'd like to enhance or amplify through colors in that room. The special challenges of a small space can make those decisions even more complicated. Color in Small Spaces : Palettes and Styles to Fit Your Home offers clear guidlines to help master the dizzying world of color! Whether you enjoy subtle and classic or rich and juicy, this book can help you to "color your life beautiful!"

As a resident of Manhattan--the world's capital of small living spaces--I have to say that just browsing this book for a half hour has given me a few dozen ideas for how to make my studio look less like a college dorm room and more like the backdrop for a Vanity Fair photo-shoot that I wish it were. A quick browse of this book will give you numerous fresh ideas, but this is no quick reference guide, nor is it some Martha Stewart/Macgyver-esque smattering of ways to turn your used band-aid wrappers into paint stencils. Color In Small Spaces is researched and written in so thorough a manner as to make a perfect classroom text for students of interior design, in addition to the spacially clueless like me. Highly recommended for anyone who would like to learn how to make a cramped and muted floor-and-wallspace sing.

I had always been impressed by this whole hairdresser turned sleuth thingummyjig. However, I'm afraid I cannot say the same for this sorry excuse of a mystery novel. Don't get me wrong. I had read all of the other books written by Grant Michaels (they were FABULOUS!), and this one somehow .....just plain stinks.

The whole story dwelled way too much between the love affair between Stan and Rafik. What the hell happened to the lovable sassy hairdresser we all knew and loved in A Body To Die For and Love You To Death? Stan was reduced to an insecure,lovelorn bumbling idiot. ALL of us know that yeah yeah Stan loves Rafik blablabla. It became sickening when Stan began spouting flowery prose about Rafik's beauty, their love for each other, etc etc etc every few pages or so. Like ENOUGH ALREADY!

Moreover, the ending was so lame that it needed crutches. Whoopde doo. Like I was SO surprised when the killer was revealed in the end. So much for intrigue.

Honestly, I am glad that the author decided to kill Rafik off in the later books. Good riddance, I'll say.

Stani is a Gay Poirot, a funny, smart, flesh & blood character. Nice mystery plus gay erotica makes a good mix. Very moving "grand finale". A very enjoyable novel.

Stan Kraychik is one hell of an amateur sleuth. And Grant Michaels is one hell of a writer!! The Kraychik novels will surely define the best of gay writing for a generation.

Stan solves murders much like a Jessica Flecher would: dogged determination and a mind which can focus on details. Read ALL the Kraychik mysteries in order: A BODY TO DIE FOR, LOVE YOU TO DEATH, DEAD ON YOUR FEET, MASK FOR A DIVA, TIME TO CHECK OUT, and his latest, DEAD AS A DOORNAIL. You will fall in love with the characters in the books.

You know, for a whiz detective Ethan Proctor does NOTHING!
Every Black Oak installment is identical--Proctor sits around while his cronies sleuth to uncover some dimwitted half-truth.
There's no Bernie Rhodanbarr-esque intrigue, no Tim Underhill ratiocination, no deadpan brilliance. In fact, there is NOTHING about Proctor that's admirable. Book after book, he sits around as murky events unfold (note to author--do you purposely muddle your stories to make them sound cool?). Then, when there's no one left to kill, Proctor lights out for the anatagonist--whom is unguessable owing to Grant's lousy style--and deftly deals out death.

Forget this noise! I used to think John Saul told the same story over and over, but Grant is just as deserving of the "DRIVEL" award.

I love these characters! Grant continues to show his strengths in narrative and character development. This Black Oak series is dark, spooky, and captivating with characters that are complex, kooky, and unforgettable.

Ethan Proctor is on another case in this latest Black Oak installment. His late father's friend, Garber Kranz, leaves him a cryptic message hinting at a wolfman and at the sighting of a friend of the missing Celeste Blaine. Proctor can't possibly pass this up, and he and Taz hop a plane to track this mystery down in northern Georgia. The story has sinister, suspicious locals, a swamp, strange creatures, and intrigue galore. There are also more hints about the mysterious group that is out to destroy Proctor.

If you've been following this series, you must read this one. If you haven't, what are you waiting for? Pick up the first, Genesis, and start reading. Although each novel can stand on its own, you'll get a much better appreciation for the characters and the complex plot running behind each of the installments if you read the entire series. These books are all short (about 250 pages at most), and they are easy, quick reads. Grant is a master storyteller, and his writing style flows smoothly. He has a knack for weaving sinister events in the most mundane settings. Take nothing for granted in his novels! I can't wait to read the next installment in the series (what will Taz find out, anyway?). The Millenium Quartet is also another set of Grant's books that is well worth the read.

Just as Black Oak is rehired to again continue the thirteen year old search for mulit-millionare Taylor Blaine's missing daughter Celeste and her two friends, Ethan Proctor recieves a message from an old friend of his father's in Georgia. It seems that the retired teacher found a resemblance between Maude Tackett (one of the missing trio) and a local retailing New Age Witch named Maudie Batts, who also happens to have gone missing recently, an apparent victim of what looks to be a serial killer who enjoyings acting like a werewolf. Or is it a real werewolf? Too bad Proctor's father's teacher friend is missing as well, another apparent victim of the werewolf.

Charles Grant delivers another exceptional episode (#5) of Black Oak in When the Cold Wind Blows. The series, after a few slightly clumsy footed introductions to the cast and the seemingly interlinked conspiracies, has really hit its stride. The novel is a well tuned engine that hums right through the intricate knots of its mysteries, dropping hints and clues that will keep the reader whipping through the pages until the rousing finale. The entire series is required reading for Dark Fantasy fans.

"Gentle Giant" is, in part, a loving and often funny account of a young man with autism who was clearly as gentle as the title suggests. If nothing else, it gives a very strong sense of how exhausting coping with an autistic child can be.

Yet there were also aspects of the book that I found saddening, even worrying. Wendy Robinson states at many points her faith that there was a normal child somehow "trapped" inside her autistic son, that the autistic boy was just a shell, not the real Grant. In some ways, her quest for a "miracle cure" seems to involve a rejection of the autistic son she describes so well and so affectionately. She praises a number of treatments, such as facilitated communication and holding therapy, which have been claimed to liberate the normal child supposedly trapped inside the autism, without mentioning that both of these have not only been scientifically discredited but also criticized as potentially extremely damaging to the autistic child and their family.

Many high-functioning people with autism such as Temple Grandin have made it clear that there is no normal person inside, and written movingly about their need to be accepted as they are. However difficult and sometimes frustrating living with an autistic person can be, rejecting them in favour of an imaginary normal child inside them is no solution.

Gentle Giant is a wonderful book about the life of an autistic boy, Grant. With an autistic brother myself I was moved both to tears and laughter by Grant's exploits. I would urge anyone with any link to autism to read this amazing book. It was so wonderful to read about all the things I knew and loved about my brother, Niall. I know my parents both felt the same and my mum was moved so much by this book that she wished to express her thanks to Wendy Robinson.

Good read, truthful and concise. A bit out of reach for most parents in terms of funding. UK seems to be much more liberal and accessable than parts of the USA. Wendy (the Mom) received incredible amounts of support form her community and seemed not to have issues with asking for help, or freely discussing her son's condition with anyone showing interest. After reading many medical books (I have a 6 yr old son that autism took 4 years ago) this was a shot in the arm as well as a much needed tear or two. Inspiring to say the least, I recommend it to any parent of an autistic child.

Michael Grant has written some wonderful books about the ancient world. Although this book is informative and very readable, the depth of this book is not great. It is mostly a summary of the life of the gladiator, and how these brutal games evolved. Many pictures in this 128 page book. If the reader is looking for something more substanial, they best look elsewhere. For those looking for a brief explanation, this is the book.

Michael Grant, in his concise summation of the Roman games in "Gladiator," covers the origins of the gladiatorial shows during the Republic until their final end in AD 404 under the emperor Honorius. In this brief work, which consists of many vivid illustrations and citations from classic texts, Michael Grant expounds upon the nature of the Gladiators from their general social origins and stand in society, to their vocation, training, and combats within, or even, outside the amphitheater. The accomplished classical scholar Michael Grant also furnishes a short discourse on the views that philosophers such as Cicero and Seneca--and other prominent figures--had on the games. He also discusses how these spectacles were ultimately forbidden. And finally, he provides a few theories on just how the people of Rome showed such unabashed toleration for these sanguinary spectacles. This work will be a highly informative, quick read, which will be of profound interest for anyone enthralled by the world of classical antiquity.

Published 1995 by Barnes & Noble Books, USA. 124 pages of good info. Many photographs. Michael Grant explains the profession, the types of gladiators and the procedure of the arena. He looks at their position in society and the attitudes of rulers, spectators and writers towards gladiators. Easy going language makes exciting reading. A fine piece of work.