I was very excited to get this book because I have loved the other Kathy Ross craft books but I found that I was disappointed in this one. The thanksgiving series was just dull I thought. I was hoping for variety in the decorations. These just did not appeal to me like her other books.

My kids ages 8,5,and 2 love the crafts in this books.For most of them you only need things you would typically have around the house, Such as colored paper,glue yarn, white paper plates. There are crafts for preschoolers such as making a turkey by tracing your hands and feet. There are more detailed projects for older children. We have made projects from this book for the last 3 Thanksgivings.

another wonderful craft book for kids...i am always impressed with the creativity in crafts books for kids...and kathy ross is one of my favorite writers....another fine book to add to my collection

Lane does an admirable job of showcasing the collision of old and new amid the unforgiving winter of the oil-rich Alaska frontier. His hero, police officer Ray Attla, has a foot in both worlds -- the native culture of his ancestors and the modern world of law enforcement. Elements of mysticism play a role in Ray's pursuit of a killer, but the plot is complex enough to keep the reader guessing until the end.

As with most novels being published today, this one could have used an editor skilled in the rules of basic English, but "Elements of a Kill" is still a good read in spite of such mistakes as 'breaks' when the meaning is clearly 'brakes'.

If you like authors Sue Henry and Dana Stabenow, here is a great new find in the Alaskan mystery genre!! Read it in the summer. Reading it on a cold, dark winters night might be a little too real to handle. I highly recommend this book.

This was my first book by this author and I will now look for more. While all of the Inuit language had me looking for the glossary a few times it kept me up at night to finish it. I liked how the author ties the old ways of the Inuits, racism and survival into one tale. With the vivid description I found myself shivering even while sitting next to a wood stove with the description of the howling winds. Kept me guessing until the last chapter.

As a tightly woven collection of thought provoking short stories, this book is a miserable failure. However, as a showcase for flaccid verbiage, trite characterization, and themes so worn as to be almost pitiably jejune, it is a success on a scale unparallelled since the publication of C. S. Lewis's "Boxen," which the author wrote between the ages of 7 to 12. Since Jayne Ann Phillips is well in her forties, she cannot be granted the benefit of the doubt granted to Lewis. Phillips's characters were so undeveloped as to resemble pencil sketches rather than portraits; her sex scenes were almost comical, seeming to lack any real feeling or even anatomical knowledge; and her plots seem to alternate between contrived and derivative. One of the characters in "No Left Turn" seems to be the prototype for "Friends'" Chandler, and her story "Daddy's Farm" bears a plot so reminiscent of "Starship Troopers" that it borders on plagiarism. There are redeeming qualities Ms. Phillip's magnum opus. It deals with themes such as incest and botulism which are inherently fascinating. One only wishes that a more masterful hand had taken up these most serious of themes. It has one final redeeming quality, one shared with all other books, it ends... eventually...

I have absolutely NO idea what book duneguy thought he was reviewing, but Amazon.com might want to think about removing his review. No incest or botulism in any of the stories in FAST LANES, and none of the story titles he mentions appear in the book. Hmmmm. This, for me, still stands as the author's finest and most accomplished achievement. Ravishing use of language which never loses sight of the essential humanity of her characters. Not to play favorites, but the two that speak most eloquently to me are the two chapters that were excised from her novel MACHINE DREAMS and reworked -- BLUE MOON and BESS. Exquisite.

As I was checking to see if Fast Lanes was still in print (I've had scored of copies over the years since it's release in hard cover and I've passed them along to friends) I was jolted (by the one HORRIBLE and misinformed Amazon reader comment) that I couldn't let that stand by itself. One, it is almost criminal that this book is out of print. WHY?? And two, from this collection of short stories, to her other works (Shelter, Black Tickets) Phillips is a master poet who ties together magical language, a connection to her West Virginia roots and a her unique skill to write from a woman's viewpoint. This collection is filled with a voice like no other and I'm off to the British version of Amazon.com to see if the Brits are a little hipper than American pubishers. A wonderful collection!!

The author focuses too much on his late night partying and problems commuting to the airport and doesn't pay enough attention to the racing season -- from the start of qualifying to the checkered flag. He barely mentions Senna's crash, but instead keeps talking about how he needs to finish his bathroom. Information on the various chassis and their respective drivers will cause you to re-open the book the following night, as will his personal impressions of the various drivers, personalities, and egos surrounding the sport.

An excellent view behind all the press releases and posturing of an F1 team. Matchett gives details of what it's like to live the sport, spending weeks on end away from home, working through the night to prepare the car...and then having to fix it all again when it crashes. If you've ever thought about becoming part of "the circus," this book will give you an idea of what to expect.

A big bonus is that Matchett happened to pick the 1994 season to write about, so there is plenty of fascinating information from the team's side about all the accusations and innuendo that arose during Benetton's first championship year.

This modest book gives the Formula One fan an interesting look at the backstage of the Grand Prix circuit. We met Steve Matchett at the USGP 2000 and found him an unassuming guy with a wealth of knowledge and humor about F1. This attitude comes through very well in this book, which details the great season Benetton had with Michael Schumacher, current F1 champion. Lots of great vignettes about the people and work behind the garage door. A great gift for any race fan!

Mizlansky/Zilinsky sounds like it would be good. Nathan lane and Paul Sand are 2 well-respected actors who you'd think would create something to look forward to. But instead, the series is crude, rude, and very unfunny. Other then a few funny antics from Nathan Lane, including some lines, the show is very bland and leads to a road of nowhere.

Absolutely hilarious play, with great acting by a terrific cast. The plot is funny, and the dialogue is funnier. What made this very special for me was the format -- a "live" audio theater performance. It was like being on Broadway. A great experience.

The superb cast bringing Jon Baitz' dark comedy of sleazy Hollywood producer Davis Mizlansky and his problems with ex-spouses, colleagues, customers, and the IRS to life includes Nathan Lane, Paul Sand, Julie Kavner, Samantha, Harry Shearer, Richard Masur; Rob Morrow, Grant Shaud, Kurtwood Smith, and Robert Walden. Ably directed by Ron West, this superbly produced, 106 minute, two cassette unabridged comedy was recorded before a live audience and offers a terrific listening experience enhanced with a full course of sound effects. Mizlansky/Zilinsky will prove a popular and entertaining addition to any personal, drama school, or community library audiobook/audioplay collection.

Lane did his research well. But to title this book "Murder in America" is not wholly accurate. After reading this book, one would think that 9 out of 10 murders are lynchings, race rioters clog the streets of our major cities, and so forth. With all of two pages in the book devoted to the gangland violence of the 1920's, Dillinger given a whole paragraph, and domestic violence mentioned in passing, this book skips a whole helluva lot. The last chapter, dealing with the past 15 or so years, is mostly statistics, and breezes through the drug trade and inner city gang murders in about half a page. Serial killers get a few pages. The sensationalism that Lane clearly hates is hypocritical since he uses so much of it in his book. The small murders don't count for much even though they add up, but those riots, and I think he covers every single one the US ever had, where a few people died in sensational ways, were given front row seats. I had really high hopes, but they were replaced by frustration. It's too bad. It started out so good.

The recent precipitous drop in the U.S. murder rate has been variously--and fairly plausibly-- attributed to prosperity, the "war on drugs", fudged reporting statistics, and anything else that may reinforce someone's political or social preconceptions. In a surprisingly engaging and entertaining style, Professor Lane examines the murder rate at different times and in different regions of the country, drawing on original records, and convincingly arguing for his basis for inferring the actual murder rate from records of coroners, cops, and courts. The results are often surprising, and probably counter-intuitive for many readers who will nonetheless find themselves satisfied with the conclusions they ultimately draw. Few readers, though, will find their initial notions supported, and part of the charm of this book is how painlessly it persuades. Those who enjoy the styles of Tuchman and McCullough will be very comfortable with this author's intelligent but definitely accessible approach.

This is clearly a well-researched work, written with an academic's sense of obligation to discipline and to standards of scholarship, but Lane never allows his professionalism to interfere with the lay reader's sheer enjoyment derived from learning something new and interesting on every page.

First-class study of the social and political circumstances determining rates of murder in the population overall and within particular groups. Gave this (non-US) reader many new insights. Particularly enlightening was the account of lynching in the post-Civil-War South as a continuation of the war by guerrilla methods - "murder as social policy". For me, it threw new light on the history of America in every period, and greatly deepened my (sympathetic) understanding of the nation's development.

This is a fairly good book but nothing like Orders to Kill by William Pepper which is much more detailed and conclusive in it's arguments. Thinking about it I guess these guys probably re-released to cash in on the time, effort and money that Pepper spent on the the case. Still it is much better than Posner so...

It was on this very day,33 years ago,that civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. It was,obviously,an awful moment for America back then...but it's something people should never forget & something people should forever scrutinize,because there are some very strange things surrounding this particular murder,...

At first delvings,though,the King-Assassination-Case can very much seem totally undecipherable. If this is the case,all you need do is devour some really good books on the subject.

Mark Lane's "Murder In Memphis" is one of these books; expertly studied & addictively written with a smart sense of exploration. "Murder In Memphis" will astonish you. The interviews,the de-classified FBI documents,the end result-revelations of a Congress investigation into the matter,all pointing,basically,to a possible/probable Conspiracy involving the highest fractions of the U.S government,the top levels of American intelligence,& the deepest reaches of organized crime~(All seductively intertwined with each other). For me,One of the best pieces of information is the one concerning Myron Billit,a old gaffer for the Mafia,who claims that in early 1968 he drove two senior mob figures,Sam Giancana & John Roselli,to a meeting with federal agents at a motel in upstate New York. Billit says that at the meeting,the Mafia leaders were offered a million dollar contract to kill Martin Luther King-(Since Myron gave this info on his death-bed,it seems unlikely to be false).

Mark Lane has constructed a mindblowing book. Fascinating reading,well worth the investment. A publication i shall always appreciate.

As it is a particular field of interest to me, I have probably read more about the trilogy of 1960's assassinations than most. Most conspiracy theories, however, involve a certain suspension of disbelief, and the reader, as investigator, must decide what they believe or not. Not so in Mark Lane and Dick Gregory's Murder in Memphis; without pointedly trying to be, their simple stating of the facts is the single most damning, disturbing, and convincing indictment of the FBI and others involved that I have ever read. Brilliantly written, the book is also meticulously researched; every source used is clearly identified and the reader gets the impression they could independently verify every statement made with relative ease. A non-stop page-turner from beginning to end; it is a must read for anyone who enjoys non-fiction.

Police officer of the north, Ray Attla makes his second appearence in Season of Death. This time he is away from the high crime of the Yukon and on a journey with his friends into the Alaskan wilderness.

With the help of a dopey guide Attla and two friends set out into the wilderness. Once there occurances of mistakes leaves the three short on supplies and low moral. Then they come across a skull with a bullet hole in it. After they visit an archaeological dig Attla suspect that the skull is not from the past but is a recent murder vicitim.

From that point on the reader is pulled into a game of cat and mouse with Attla and a loco local.

As Ray and his buddies, Billy Bob and Lewis leave on their hunting trip, he thinks he hears his wife tell him they are going to have a baby. He is not sure about fatherhood and, when the gear gets dumped in the river, he is not sure about this hunting trip. Then they find a head without a body. The plot is well-constructed and entertaining but the attempt at dialect for Lewis and Billy Bob is annoying. Fortunately, Ray is the smartest one in the group and the trip he takes the reader on is most entertaining. Somewhat similar to John Straley in characterization but much more action. I found it worth the money!

Inupiat officer Ray Attla, against his better judgement, goes hunting with his 2 friends also Barrow policemen Lewis and Billy Bob. Ray finds himself stranded in the wilds of the North Slope of Alaska with most of his equipment at the bottom of a lake courtest of likable but inept Lewis, and Billy Bob, a Texan transplant who doesn't have a clue of what survival in the Alaskan bush is all about. To complicate matters they find a severed head. Ray must somehow figure out how to get his friends out of the bush alive,and solve the mystery of the head despite being hunted by the bad guys. A very entertaining book. The author has impressive knowlege of the Alaskan bush and native Inupiat culture. Being a transplanted Alaskan myself, I can vouch from experience that the depiction of the native dialect was realistic. An excellent book!

This book has good intentions, but they are not carried through in the text. The writing is rather flowery and general and by the end of the authors call *research*, you don't really find out what that research was. I was looking for a book to recommend to cancer patients who want to use self expression as part of their healing, but this was not the book, I ended up returning it.

Filled with beautifully written stories, this book reveals the eight steps of spiritual healing. It puts you in touch with your spirituality and also, a meaningful higher power. This graceful and sensitive guide will show you how to make immediate changes in your life.

This book changed my life. After reading the stories in this book and doing the guided imagery exercises, I was different. I began to have beautiful visions and saw myself surrounded by guides and connected to others. This is my favorite book. I do not have an illness, I have done meditation for years, but this book took me to places in my spirit I have never been. I know it will change your life too.

"Taking Care of Business" is a scathing attack on the shortsighted, bureaucratic, business union approach of the leadership of the AFL and AFL-CIO over the last one hundred years. None of the presidents of these labor federations from Gompers through Meany and Kirkland escape the author's thoroughgoing criticism.

Of course, those leaders can only reflect the nature of the overall trade union movement. Trade unions in the US have historically been both exclusionary and, since WWII, controlling in their relationship to the working class. Most trade unions, until only very recently, have focused on protecting the relatively privileged position of white, skilled craftsmen within the economy while either outright excluding or only rhetorically supporting the largest portion of the working class due to differences in race, ethnicity, gender, or skill level. The rise of industrial unions in the WWII era, despite being a small step in the direction of inclusion, ushered in a labor relations regime where labor unions' role became one of enforcing constraining collective bargaining agreements as much as the representation of workers.

By the early 1950s union officials, as typified by Meany and Kirkland, came to see themselves as the counterpart to business leaders in a labor-management accord. They adopted the same lifestyles and moved in the same social circles. Labor officials, in their newfound role, had no problem with making the world safe for business interests. So-called radical unions and unionists with their demands for worker activism at the point of production were purged from the AFL and unions. The AFL and AFL-CIO under the regimes of Meany and Kirkland collaborated with the US intelligence community through a series of front committees and councils to defeat popular movements in favor of pro-US, right-wing thugs in foreign lands, especially Latin America. Even though the PATCO fiasco of 1981 clearly showed the shredding of the post-WWII domestic social compact, the focus of the AFL-CIO remained on expending tremendous amounts of federation resources on dubious foreign operations.

Clearly, Meany and Kirkland did little to advance the interests of US workers, but the author does not really address the weakly federated structure of organized labor in the US. Given the independence of the AFL's constituent unions and the history of organized labor through WWII, were Meany and Kirkland types not almost predictable? Perhaps they do deserve the author's scorn as symbols of the ineffectualness of organized labor, but the problems run much deeper.

The author more than hints that the Gompers-Meany-Kirkland threesome squashed the desires of the US working class to establish some sort of workers democratic regime - his admiration for the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) being a tip-off. But that view may be mostly wishful. He cites the Knights of Labor as indicative of working class interest in social unionism, but it is clear that only a small portion of the membership of that organization supported the KOL position of transforming the US into a cooperative society. In fact the KOL impaled itself on traditional, yet failed, strike actions. The author does not attempt to quantify, or place in a broader perspective, the impact of the 1890-1920 movements of populism, the IWW, and socialism on the wider society. Though Gompers, a socialist in his early working days, was clearly unsympathetic towards these movements, the attribution that he was a major factor in their demise seems very questionable. His power to influence events pales in comparison to power of various organs of the state, especially the judiciary, and corporations to adversely affect the working class.

Though the author continually raises the issue of worker democracy as a rebuke to the policies of labor leadership, there is scant reflection on what worker democracy may entail. It would have been unthinkable that the author's much admired IWW would have tolerated third-party bureaucratic organizations like unions negotiating contracts for workers. The IWW wanted direct worker control at the point of production for all workers. But then the practical questions of social and economic coordination arise quickly with such radical decentralization. Nonetheless, the author does not attempt to resolve in any practical way the conflict between actual democracy and the current form of organized labor in the US. Nor is there any real assessment of the desire of the American working class to participate in some form of IWW-like democracy.

The author does not limit himself to the personalities that have led the AFL-CIO. He is determined to identify countless former communists and socialists of labor organizations who renounced their radical pasts and joined neo-conservative political bodies or collaborated with the intelligence community. The fact that the author is a socialist undoubtedly is germane to his mission of identifying those who have abandoned the cause.

A book that is so intent on skewering personalities usually suffers as a result and this one is no exception. The author hints at but does not pursue some worthy topics. What is worker democracy? Are trade unions compatible with such democracy? Aren't centralization and bureaucracy necessary in any complex society? Now those are topics worthy for a book on the labor movement and the working class.

A scathing analysis of the flaws of Meany and Kirkland as leaders of the AFL-CIO. Well-written, well-informed, and passionate. Must reading for union activists and scholars, especially those who are sympathetic to Kirkland or Sweeney. But for rather different views, see Mort, Not Your Father's Labor Movement, and, especially, Taylor Dark, The Unions and the Democrats.

A pugnacious, elegant and devastating critique of the Cold war liberal, business unionists who have corrupted American trade unionism and delivered the wimpy, pathetic federation we have now.