I just finished reading this Oprah book, and I have to be honest. I love Oprah to death and I admire her greatly, but I think this book was poorly written and organized. There were many events in Oprah's life, but in reading this biography, I was confused often as to the exact particulars of many incidents. An incredible book could be written about Oprah's life, but I don't think this book does a very good job at it. I guess I will just have to wait for the day Oprah comes out with her own autobiography!

This is a good book from two points:
One, it explains indepth teh business strategy behind Harpo Studios and those who helped Oprah not only attain her vision but expand it.
Two, the earliest chapters have good information that she has publicly revealed herself about her beginnings in both life and business.
Other than that, I think it's sleazy to write these kinds of books without someone's at the least tacit cooperation. Though this doesn't approach some of the sniping of say a Tamborelli book, there are still visble comments that one could attribute to a jealous/envious/salacious writer....

I listened to the audiotape with great interest, right about the time I was writing the chapter on Depression in my own book. This clearly shows how even under the most adverse and seemingly hopeless circumstances, personal belief and confidence count for everything and can accomplish anything!! Should be a stirring wake up for those who suffer depression and feel they can't pull themselves out. In "The Care and Feeding of Your Brain" I talk about the various treatments for depression. Once the cycle is started, medical treatment is required. However among my own patients, it is usually something like an example showing "how it is possible" to get them to believe that the feelings of worthlessness are destructive lies from the inside. Once a person has this "proof of example" they acquire the inner strength to the corner with new found belief in themselves and their capabilities. Oprah has battled many adverse circumstances, and even after acheiving what society would term "phenomenal success". She comes through each disaster like a phoenix-bird up from the ashes. Say what you want about her various reputations for being tough and mean...people its a tough world, and it takes a confident and driving woman to concretize her personal dreams! This book has a simple plot: this one amazing woman faces enough bad luck from her truly humble beginnings for any "self-pitier" to write volumes on "my excuse for failure: how the world screwed me". She then consistently and gracefully flies through each challenge carrying seemingly inexhaustible inner strength and the focus of a laser-beam. She ignores all obvious outward indicators of hopelessness,impending doom, and instead of quitting each time when most of us would, she follows her own instincts. Like her or not, her life is an amazing story of what any American is capable of by shedding the shroud of excuses and tales of woe.....All the best to Ms. Winfrey and to Mr. Mair...though she may not be totally pleased with his candid depiction, and even if the stories are not completely accurate, this tome paints a very admirable picture of our greatest contemporary American success story...Kenneth Giuffre MD, author "The Care and Feeding of Your Brain"

The Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association is above all a fascinating period piece that takes you into an unfamiliar world before refrigerators, modern film technology, reliable cars, and honest law enforcement. It's a time of silent movies featuring printed cards to help relate the story, and made more exciting by a piano player in the movie theater. And the price of admission is one nickel. Vignettes set at a later date are inserted to give you a sense of what's to come: how the pioneers fared; the rise of the studio system for making stars; and the effect of stars on society.

The basic story line is about the wild and woolly efforts involved in establishing the motion picture industry. Entrepreneurs started filming and worried about the payroll later. The technology was dangerous. Indoor Klieg lights could easily start a fire, and made the actors' eyes very sore so that they could not shoot indoors every day. The film was highly combustible and had a short life if it didn't catch on fire. Thomas Edison led an effort to extract patent royalties on the motion picture technology, and Pinkerton "detectives" used violent tactics much like they did with labor union strikers. The technology was hard to use. You had to hand crank the camera at the right speed (singing She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain When She Comes or Dixie at the proper tempo as you do) or the images convey nonsense. Few have any experience, and you just do your best.

The book opens near Mount Shasta in northern California where people of Russian immigrant parentage operate an ice business by cutting up blocks of a lake in the middle of winter. Dmitri Andreivitch Pulski, the owner's son, dreams of being a writer. He's supposed to be supervising the work teams, but he sneaks off to a shed to write in the quiet solitude. Unexpectedly, the company gets an order for their entire inventory of ice for delivery in two weeks to Los Angeles. Why would anyone need so much ice? Can they pay? Dmitri is sent to find out, taking along all of the family's money. The usually gentle giant, Yuri, a Russian immigrant who has a violent history, accompanies him. Their long drive to Los Angeles will change your view of what driving can be all about, as they constantly repair tires and replace the brake linings.

Once in Los Angeles, they discover the magic of the motion picture business. Instead of focusing on the ice sale, Dmitri renames himself as Tom Boston and gets a job as a scenario writer (even though he's never seen one). Yuri is encouraged to shave his beard and starts appearing in the company's westerns. In the meantime, Dmitri puts off telling his father what's going on. Even though the motion picture company is on the brink of financial ruin, Dmitri tells his father that the bill will be paid in advance.

What happens from there is an excitement-filled cliffhanger that will remind you a lot of the old silent films . . . interspaced with film noire detective stories from the 1930s. It's great fun though, and I highly recommend this book.

I rated the book down one star because the future vignettes, although interesting, don't really integrate with the plot all that well. If the vignettes had fit in better, this would have been a tremendous book. I kept comparing the book in my mind to Ragtime, and found this element to be an important flaw.

After you finish this book, consider where in your life taking action would be more important than necessarily taking the time to find out what you are doing first. Life saving of a small child in a pool might be such an example.

Get moving with your life!

I learned so much about Hollywood in the 1900s and I actually cared about the characters. This is a fun quirky story and now I am a fan of Loren Estleman.

The historical implications of why the movies went to L.A., and what the days of silent moving pictures were like, is enough to pick up this book. Plus it's a darn good yarn.

the plot is the usual, but i really find the ending amirable, just that i wish i knew what exactly happened to Jack... it's so irritating to have loose ends.

This sequel is the story of another Deliverance Company mercenary, Shaun Murphy--a rough, tough, unmanageable alpha male, who's hired by a prim and proper Texas woman to find her missing brother in a terrorist-ridden Central American country. His price? One night with her! Letty Madden, who is stubbornly intent on accompanying Murphy, becomes a force with which to reckon, and Murphy's sure she's his punishment for never caring about anyone. And, as he says in a letter back to his boss, "...hell, buddy, I'm in big trouble. Getting out alive is the least of my problems."

I love to read a book you can get involved in along with the characters. Someday Soon and Sooner or Later are those type of books, but I am left to wander what will happen to Jack? Is there a woman out there for him? Please write him a happy ever after he deserves one. Better Late Than Never?

I have read several, but not all, of the books by Marian Babson. They follow the same pattern in that the police rarely play a major role and the reader usually knows "whodunnit" from the beginning. This book follows in the same manner. What makes Ms. Babson's writing so enjoyable is that no matter who the main character is, in this case an 11-year-old boy, she is able to make him/her believable. She knows exactly what the reactions would be appropriate for the profile of the character. I particularly enjoyed this book because I liked the main character, Robin. The way in which he protects the cat, going so far as to dye and cut its fur among other things, made me want to root for him. Looking forward to the next book from this imaginative author.

They knew he was afraid of heights, and that's why they set this up. If he wanted to be part of the gang he had to climb the tree, get in the house, grab Mrs. Nordling's show cat, and get out. He wants to belong somewhere so he takes his chances. What Robin experiences, no child should. During the unpleasant scene he rescues the cat, but ends up a witness to murder. He doesn't go to the police, but he does hide the cat. He deals with some unsavory people, including relatives. The murderer knows there was a witness; he chased him out of the house. Through the storyline he deals with covering the murder, finding the cat and the witness, and keeping a nosy neighbor at bay.

Readers will know who the murderer is so there is no sleuth or mystery to solve; in fact the police don't play an active part in it, although they are mentioned. Being only 189 pages, it reads as a quick suspenseful story where the author takes the reader back and forth between Robin with his family and the murderer. Robin's life is heart wrenching, and although the path to which he got the cat was not good, having her in his life just might be.

Another gem from Marian Babson! The synopsis for this book is rather accurate so I'll stick to why I liked this mystery novel so much -- it was a really good read. "To Catah A Cat" is a very well written novel that deals, primarily, with kids who feel like outsiders, not quite belonging to any group or anyone; and who have to behave with a level of maturity that they shouldn't have to but which circumstances have forced upon them.

And Marian Babson does a marvellous job at depicting the world of 11 year old Robin: a world in which he has been unceremoniously unloaded onto his young aunt, Mags, while his mother and her new husband have an extended honeymoon; a world in which he has, currently, very few friends, and in which he is very much resented by his aunt's live-in lover, Josh; and a world in which he is presently in trouble up to his eyeballs because he broke into the Nordling house in order to steal a valueable cat so that he could be part of a gang, and instead stumbled onto a murder scene. Robin doesn't have much faith in adults. From his outlook he has been severely let down by every adult in his life and he doesn't feel as if he could trust either Mags or Josh with the truth of what happened at the Nordling house. And so Robin soldiers on, trying to take care of the cat he rescued while he keeps an eye out, in case the murderer comes around looking for him.

Babson also does a wonderful job at depicting the murderous rage and the cold bloodedness of the killer who tries to cover up what has occurrerd and who then sets about to try and track Robin and the cat.

This is may not be a tension filled thriller, although there were some tense moments when it looked as if the murderer would give in to the rage and kill again, but this is definitely a well written book and a really enjoyable read.

This author is very intelligent. So much so that she isolates very good percentage of her potential readers because of her level of thought. Once into the book, it gets better, and the subject matter is very provocative. Unless you are ready to handle some very heavy reading, I would let this one pass.

This book by Dr. Wheeler starts out reading like a turgid doctoral dissertation, which it was. (Well, at least a doctoral dissertation, to which I'd apply the adjective "turgid" generically.) But once she makes her way to the intense examination of four New Testament passages on our relationship with wealth, this book explodes with power. She then sets those four and their key themes within the whole canon, so this is a book about much more than just four Bible passsages. And she brings you home to your life and your own relationship with wealth, possession, "stuff," by inviting you to ponder a series of questions, all growing out of scriptures. If you are a preacher, there's a whole series of important, riveting sermons here; if you are a lay person, there is a radical transformation, a metanoia, that you may find in this book. Thank you, Dr. Wheeler!

Do you ever sit in church just before the collection plate is passed and listen to the minister try to tell you why to give? Usually, a brief piece of scripture is quoted telling you how much God loves cheerful givers. You will be anything but cheerful after reading this thorough account of what the Bible actually says about wealth and posessions. This is not for people looking for a nice quote to use in a stewardship campaign. This book is for people who really want to wrestle with what it means to be Christian. Read this book, and you will give up the idea entirely, or you will be haunted by its inescapable truth for the rest of your life.

The use of actual witness accounts is an interesting technique but it creates a read which is not vey focused. Each witness, telling their own part of the grand story, takes it in their own direction. The result is a lot of tangents that make it difficult to focus on the details of the battle. This should be the fourth or fifth book on Gettysburg you read, not the first.

This book offers an interesting account of the Battle of Gettysburg as seen through the eyes of participants, both North & South, and civilian witnesses like towns folk and such. Not a detailed account of the battle but certianly a very easy to read and enjoyable (if you can say such about a terrible battle) story about this period of history. The use of first person accounts/recollections fits in with the historical narrative of the author which makes this book a pleasure to read.

So I was in the 2nd book of Shelby Foote's 3 book narrative history of the Civil War when the battle of Gettysburg occurred. As happens with so many readers I became fascinated with the topic and had to temporarily postpone further reading of Shelby Foote's trilogy to drill-down into the battle of Gettysburg.

For me this drill-down into Gettysburg amounted to reading a biography of Joshua Chamberlain of 20th Maine and Little Round Top fame and this book on the Civil War. This book provides excellent elaboration of this topic. It is filled with 1st hand quotations of a wide variety of people from generals, to privates, to cavalry, to citizens. The book provides balanced coverage of both Union and Confederate sides. And the book does a decent job of placing the battle in context of the larger war, although of course not nearly a deep and extensive lead-in as provided by Shelby Foote. I enjoyed this book. If I was reading just one book about the Civil War, this book is of course too narrow in scope. But if one is reading many books on the topic, then this book provides excellent detail and insight into one of the most important and interesting battles of the Civil War.

John A. Wheeler is not only of the world's leading physicists but he is a great teacher. Besides writing an excellent popular introduction to Relativity theory "Gravity And Spacetime" he is co-writer of the most popular academic work on General Relativity "Gravitation" and also of a superb textbook introducing undergraduates to Special Relativity "Spacetime Physics". Both Professor's Wheeler popular works and text books are clear, user friendly expositions of Relativity Theory. So it was with great anticipation that I started Wheeler's collections of essays "At Home In The Universe".

Unfortunately many of the essays are directed at the professional scientist and are beyond the level of even the well read amateur. Reading some of Professor Wheeler's discussions of the philosophy of science is like being thrown into a discussion being conducted by people who have known each other for a very long time and have developed a special language. For instance, "With a slight rewording of Bohr's formulation, we say, 'The use of certain concepts in the description of nature automatically excludes the use of other concepts, which however, in another connection are equally necessary for the description of the phenomenon.'"

There are some gems in this book, though. John A. Wheeler seems to have personally known every great scientist of the Twentieth Century: Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman, Andrei Sakharov, Kurt Godel, John von Neumann, Steven Weinberg. His comments on them and their work are invaluable.

Wheeler also has some interesting comments on the risks of a nuclear energy. One does not need to accept his optimistic viewpoint in order to appreciate his insight.

"At Home In The Universe" is really two books: one for the professional scientist and another for the general public. If the volume was separated, we would have two excellent books instead of a single disappointing one.

John Archibald Wheeler is one of the landmark physicists of the 20th century. He has served as mentor to Richard Feynman, Kip Thorne and Hugh Everett (among others). He made significant contributions on the production of the A-bomb in WWII and also headed up the US efforts to make the H-bomb post WWII. He is, in a word, one of the most under-rated scientists of the current epoch.

In the present book, he spends most of his pages paying homage to people who dedicated their lives to science over the centuries. Such venerable names as Nicolaus Copernicus, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Hideki Yukawa, Maria Sklodowska Curie, Hermann Weyl and others form the objects of Wheeler's praise. Much of the book is made up of snippets of terse speeches which Wheeler has made at various symposiums and celebrations during his lengthy sojourn at Princeton. For example, there is a brief poem which he wrote for Joseph Henry which is included, as well as an oration on the "colleagueship at Princeton" which he delivered in 1966.

Interspersed throughout the book are essays which Wheeler has written on quantum mechanics, black holes, cosmology & the like. These are not the easiest pieces to read; I would suggest that readers browse through some preliminary books on QM before attempting to read Wheeler ("Taking The Quantum Leap" by Fred Alan Wolf might be a good place to start). The essays are well written & Wheeler uses some helpful analogies, but the going is still pretty rough. One of Wheeler's quotes which I really like (not from this book, though) is "If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day." One is sure to find many-a-strange scientific phenomenom in this book.

This book lacks a central, cohesive theme & the order in which it was put together does not follow any specific chronology or format. However, I don't think this takes away from the book's superb picture of what one of the premiere scientists of the 20th century spends his days thinking about. There are several passages in which he compares and contrasts science with philosophy as well as with the pragmatism of everyday existence. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in John Archibald Wheeler, physics, or the scientific community of Princeton university. Make yourself at home....

Erdrich's novels are all about the same characters and setting, and people and stories overlap and intertwine. But this is the only novel that doesn't feel complete in and of itself. Parts of the book are simply wonderful--particularly, Lipsha's account of how he came to get a tatoo. Worth the price of admission for that story alone--but still, for an Erdrich fan, a bit of a disappointment.

I had not expected to like this book... when I began it, I was sure that I would have to force myself to the end because I tend to like the romantic happily-ever-after sort of story, but once I began, Erdrich caught me in the absurdities of the world of Lipsha. I have read many reviews that do not find Lipsha an especially likable character, but I liked him despite the fact that he was the sort who would instinctively choose the wrong way to do anything. The sheer absurdity of Erdrich's work, including a food fight in Dairy Queen between romantic rivals, a vision quest that brought forth a talking skunk, and a ghostly mother who wanted the T-bird that her insurance money bought, adds just enough humor to make even the defeats of Lipsha amusing rather than tragic. The book is worth a try, especially if seen in terms of Lipsha's returning home to find the kinship with the land that he had lost -- a slow healing process. The skunk tells him, "It ain't real estate," and at the base of all the other adventures he begins to realize this, but as with so many young people, the discovery is slow coming and fraught with disasters

I am sure W.F.B.'s moniker as "the great conservative thinker" will repell many from this work, but the well developed characters, and romantic settings make for a good work of fiction regardless of your affiliations. This could be thought of as a thinking person's "Talented Mr. Ripley". Maybe not the most thought provoking read you will ever have, but I think it is one of the most entertaining.

Like Buckley's other novels, plot, characterization and moral satisfy. Interesting historical perspectives. This is light fare and easy to read in one sitting

If you have read other Katherine Stone books this one will not disappoint. This one reads fas as usual and there is the traditional medical story in it but the love story is what has been the drawing for for me in all Katherine Stone books and this one has it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The plot was entertaining and unpredictable. I enjoy all of her books and this was definitely one of the best!