Thank you Grandad, your legacy is a good one. This book has become everything and more than you hoped. I am so glad your memories were preserved in this book. Thanks for being my hero. -Micah McGuire-

Hadley has captured the recollections of Fifteenth Air Force crewman Melvin McGuire and molded them into a memoir with rare power. Bloody Skies should go down as one of the best memoirs produced concerning the World War II airwar.

The reader gets a great look at the daily life of a B-17 crewman. We learn the way in which he lived with death on a daily basis. WARNING: This book is impossible to put down when it gets going.

The book is also a great contribution to the memory of the Fifteenth Air Force. Having been usually overshadowed by the Eighth Air Force, the Fifteenth was stationed in North Africa-Italy, and bombed strategic targets throughout the underbelly of Europe. The Fifteenth absored horrible casulties while bombing infamous targets including Ploesti, Steyr, and Vienna. McGuire and his fellow airmen lived in cruder and more inhospitable conditions than the England-based Eighth.

I have been a B-17 enthusiast since I can remember, and I have had the priveledge of talking with a few pilots as well as touring many of the remaining aircraft; but until I read Bloody Skies, I had never accurately understood what it took to complete a bombing mission over Europe in the height of WWII. Mr. McGuire, through his amazing memory in concert with massive amounts of research and actual written documentation brings the reader as close an anyone could ever hope to become to his war. If you are looking for a thrilling book, that blends raw emotion with factual documentation this is your book. I will never forget Mr. McGuire, his crew, and their sacrifice from this day forward.

I have read more books than I will ever remember but I know for sure that this is my favorite book of them all. I do not know how many copies that I have purchased to give to friends and found that they felt the same and also purchased copies to pass on. McCammon will capture your heart with Boy's Life and resurrect emotions that you have long forgotten.

Our English 11 class is very excited about reading a second title by McCammon, as we read Boy's Life last year.

Folks - if you love these books, you better grab them while you can. Just read the news that Robert McCammon - the best seller author of these books is retiring. He has two new works and no one to publish them - so think he is just fed up and retiring...Check out the web site about him: ...These are awesome books and a terrific writer - he will be missed...

Great prep material for the CLEP, although it doesn't have a sample test in it, so it is useful to buy, for instance, Mr. Orr's book along with it. I did that, read both (only the relevant sections from Barron) and got a 68. Also great as later reference!

This is an outstanding resource if you plan to CLEP Introductory Business Law. It's organized, easy to read and encapsulates what you need to know in easy to understand language. If you're taking Business Law II, it makes an invaluable reference. I passed the Intro to Business Law CLEP with a 60, using this book, and "Essentials to Business Law I" which was bundled with it. If you're serious about passing the CLEP and you don't want to invest a ton of money in a book to prepare for it, this one is worth its weight in gold! I give it 5 stars!

I bought this book to study for the CLEP Business Law I exam. I realized I could also use it for the Dantes Business Law II exam. I passed both, and am keeping it for a handy desk reference.

Nicely organized, good examples, and easy to read.

I just learned about this NEW publication, which is a revision of the one I read "Byrne's Standard Book of Pool and Billiards", Copyright © 1987, 1978 by the same author Robert Byrne. I have read just about every book on this subject, and there is no better book than this one! In fact, I recommend all of Robert Byrne's Pool & Billiards books and videos. He is an accomplished player, teacher and author.

I have no doubts that this book will meet and exceeds everyone's expectations on the subject!

I have read just about every book on this subject, there is no better book than this one! In fact, I recommend all of Robert Byrne's Pool & Billiards books and videos. He is an accomplished player, teacher and author.

This book will meet and exceeds everyones expectations on the subject!

Outstanding information on basic and advanced technique.It tells you about draw and follow shots, and also english.It also gives you information on straight pool, eight-ball, and many other pool games.This is in my opinion, the only book on pool and billiards you will ever need. Robert Byrne has really outdone himself by creating this masterpiece. This book should be on the shelves of every pool and billiards player. This is by far the best book on pool and billiards ever written.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once remarked of English that it is 'the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.'

The English language is certainly a sea of words and constructs which has been fed into by almost every major language and ethnic tradition in the world. English began as a hodge-podge of languages, never pretending to the 'purity' of more continental or extra-European languages (which, by the by, were never quite as pure as they like to assume).

The book 'The Story of English', as a companion piece to accompany the PBS-produced series of the same name, hosted by Robert MacNeil, late of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, is an articulate, engaging, wide-ranging and fair exposition of an ordinarily difficult and dry subject.

The study of English is difficult on several levels. 'Until the invention of the gramophone and the tape-recorder there was no reliable way of examining everyday speech.' What did English sound like 200 years ago, or 400 years ago? 'English is--and has always been--in a state of ungovernable change, and the limits of scholarship are demonstrated by phrases like the famous 'Great Vowel Shift', hardly more informative than the 'unknown land' of early cartography.'

Of course, written language has until modern times been the limited and limiting commodity of a very small minority of people. The balance between the written and spoken language has a variable history, which can still be seen today (compare the writing of the New York Times against the speech patterns and vocabulary choices of any dozen persons you will find on the street in New York City, and this divergence will be readily apparent).

English has many varieties, and this book explores many of them, explaining that the writings and speech-patterns we see and hear as being foreign are actually English variants with a pedigree as strong as any Oxford University Press book would carry. From the Scots language which migrated to the Appalachian mountains to the Aussie languages adapted to Pacific Islands, to the ever-changing barrow speech of inner London, English speakers have a wide variety of possibilities that no one is truly master of all the language.

'If our approach seems more journalistic than scholastic, we felt this was appropriate for a subject that, unlike many academic studies, is both popular and newsworthy. Hardly a week goes by without a news story, often on the front page, devoted to some aspect of English: the 'decline' of standards; the perils and hilarities of Franglais or Japlish; the adoption of English as a 'national' language by another Third World county.'

English is, for international trade and commerce, for travel, for science and most areas of major scholarship, and many other groupings, the language not only of preference, but of required discourse.

In trying to find the length and breadth of English infusion into the world, past and present, MacNeil and primary authors Robert McCrum and William Cran have produced an engaging history, literary survey, sociology, and etymological joyride. By no means, however, are the major streams of English overlooked in favour of the minor tributaries--Shakespeare warrants most of his own chapter, as is perhaps fitting for the most linguistically-influential of all English speakers in history.

Of course, about this same time, the Authorised Version of the Holy Bible (better known as the King James Version) was also produced, with its own particular genius of language. 'It's an interesting reflection on the state of the language that the poetry of the Authorised Version came not from a single writer but a committee.'

There is a substantial difference in aspect of these two works -- whereas Shakespeare had a huge vocabulary, with no fear of coining new words and terms to suit his need, the King James Bible uses a mere 8000 words, making it generally acceptable to the everyman of the day. 'From that day to this, the Shakespearian cornucopia and the biblical iron rations represent, as it were, the North and South Poles of the language, reference points for writers and speakers throughout the world, from the Shakespearian splendour of a Joyce or Dickens to the biblical rigour of a Bunyan, or a Hemingway.'

From Scots to Anglesey, from the Bayou to the Barrier Reef, English is destined to be a, if not the, dominant linguistic force in the world for some time to come, particularly as the internet, the vast global communication network, is top-heavy with English, albeit an ever changing variety.

Revel in the glories of the English language, and seek out this fun book. Everyone will find something new.

After watching the series it is fun to see the information in print.

Just about everything you ever wanted to know about the English Language is in this book. There are newer and older references but none so complete and at the same time readable. This book covers history, usage, almost usage and possible futures of the language.

One of my favorite antidotes was the one about how the Advisory Committee on Spoken English (ACSE) discussed the word "canine":

"Shaw brought up the word 'canine', and he wanted the recommendation to be 'cay-nine'... And somebody said 'Mr. Shaw, Mr. Chairman, I don't know why you bring this up, of course it's 'ca-nine'. Shaw said, 'I always pronounce things the way they are pronounced by people who use the word professionally every day.' And he said, 'My dentist always says (cay-nine)'. And somebody said, 'Well, in that case, Mr. Chairman, you must have an American dentist.' And he said, 'Of course, why do you think at 76 I have all my teeth!'"

After reading about how English came about, the next book to read would be "Divided by a Common Language" by Christopher Davies, Jason Murphy

I read this book back in my 'English Conversation Teacher' days in Japan. Having been embrassed one to many times by students having to lecture me, their teacher, on the history of English, I figured I should do some 'catch-up reading.' I asked around for suggestions and was recommended 'The Story of English'.

It is free of the linguistic jargon most general readers would find pedantic, and although it is aimed at the general reader it is never condescending. The first half of the book explains the historical development of English while the second half focues on modern English.

Most refreshing though, is that it is free of the triumphalism found in many books of this kind. Reflecting the demographic reality of English today, it gives even-handed attention to the many contemporary varieties of English spoken around the world in places such as North America, Singapore, India, the Anglophone West Indies, and so on.

'The Story of English' is best suited to those who are curious about the origins as well as the future of English, and who want an easy-to-understand introduction to the subject.

This classic edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses" is justly famed because it so beautifully pairs Stevenson's sometimes exuberant, sometimes melancholy poems on childhood with the extraordinary illustrations of Tasha Tudor.

Tudor's delicate watercolors complement Stevenson's work almost to the point that you think the two, living in different centuries, must share some time-travel telepathy with each other. All the classic Stevenson pieces are here: "The Swing," "The Land of Counterpane," the terrific poem about a child's shadow. Tudor depicts only children and animals herein--as it should be--without the presence of shadow of adults anywhere. Both Stevenson and Tudor understand in their bones that no matter what grown-ups may think, children inhabit a world of their own. That world is mostly beautiful, but sometimes fraught with danger or questions. Those hints are present here, but the overwhelming impression any reader will have will be that of beauty--both in words and in pictures.

With it's delicate Tasha Tudor drawings as a perfect accompiment to these famous poems for children(or the child within).this book is both lovely to look at as well as read. Would make a lovely gift for expectant mom;I'm saving this one for my niece & nephew..!

The moment my first grandson was born, I could not wait until he was old enough for me to read this wonderful book to him. It's time! The book was given to me when I was 4 and I still can recite most of the poems from memory. The poems and stories of Robert Louis Stevenson are simply the best. If there is a child in your family.....A Child's Garden of Verses is a MUST!

This is a book that tells the life story of Bill Graham and rock'n'roll as it existed in New York and San Francisco in the 1960's to his death in 1991. It is told in an "interview" format: whereby it has "Bill" and his narrative on a subject, followed by, say, "Graham Nash" and his contributions, and so on, in roughly a chronological order.

It is an effective method that, in a few cases, would have benefitted from some editor's notes. Also, I would have liked more factual information (i.e., a listing of bands that played at his venues, addresses, dates of operations, etc.) that would have been valuable to read.

With that, it tells the story of rock'n'roll in the U.S. - and especially from 1965 to 1971. For that, it is invaluable.

'My Life Inside Rock and Out' is a very interesting account of the great rock'n'roll impresario Bill Graham, documenting his rough beginnings from the East Coast to San Francisco, where he really settled in to sink his teeth into putting on some amazing shows such as Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, etc. Bill Graham was perfect for the budding psychedelic rock and blues industry because he had a strong business sense but also a tolerance for the absurd- and you will read more than a few absurd accounts in this book. What Mr. Graham did with BGP, the Fillmore, and the Shoreline, to name but a few, was so enriching to the Bay Area musical community, not to mention he also put on shows in the far reaches of the world. He was an agent/producer before things became so commercialized and calculated, and his tragic death struck a very deep and elegaic chord which still now resonates off the walls of corporate-sanitized America. But I Ratmouse will NEVER forget him.

As a former roadie, this book gives a very accurate depiction of what it was like in the last 20-30 years in the concert tour industry. My experience comes firsthand, as well through the lore that is passed down from seasoned veterans. Bill Graham was an inspiring, hard-headed, revolutionary and daring character that made the concert experience what it is today, both for punters and roadies.

A must read for rock or any music fans.

I am new to David Morrell's works, but that will soon be remedied, after I listened to the unabridged version of his short stories.

Not only are the stories EXCELLENT, but I imensely enjoyed the author's commentary before and after each one.

And he makes his points, plots and story lines, with little vulgarity, which is becoming much too common in the latest Stephen King works.

Kudos and I will be hearing more.

There have been several times that I have bought an anthology like "Prime Evil" so that I could read an otherwise unreleased Stephen King or Clive Barker story, and ended up being blown away by the stories of David Morrell. Finally, K-Tel-like, everyone can enjoy these powerful, imaginative stories without having to buy a dozen other books.

While this collection does not contain all of Morrell's short fiction, it does contain all that I had read in other anthologies, most notably the powerhouse novella "Orance is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity," one of my all-time pieces of fiction, short or otherwise. I am a fan of author notes in collections, and Morrell doesn't disappoint. While he doesn't expound the way that, say, Harlan Ellison does, there are short notes before each store in addition to a Foreword and Afterword, and these add a texture to the book that I think makes your first read more enjoyable and increases the re-readability. Plus if you've already read a couple of these in anthologies it is nice to see the author's perspective instead of the anthology editor's perspective before the stories.

I read this during a particularly hot summer week and found it to be perfect for this setting...the stories are engrossing enough that I forgot about the heat, and a few times I caught a genuine bit of a chill! Anyone who enjoys dark stories or speculative fiction should give this great book a read.

Ordinarily I am not a huge fan of horror stories, but I can honestly say that Black Evening is frightfully fantastic. This spine-tingling collection of sixteen tales explores the dark side of greed, power, and madness. Morrell is able to pack a lot of punches and twists into his short (but not so sweet) stories. Moreover, his writing expresses his compassion and intelligence like that of an accomplished literary great.

An added bonus to this book is the foreward at the beginning of each story. Morrell discusses his development as a writer and shares with the reader his personal tales of triumph and tragedy: from his meeting with his idol, writer Stirling Silliphant, to the death of his teenage son to bone cancer. Each story seems to be weaved around an event that touched Morrell's life. This authenticity makes for a more eerie read. For example, "But at My Back I always Hear," is about a professor who is stalked by a female student infatuated with him. Morrell himself faced this dilemma while teaching at the University of Iowa. Other scary topics covered include an art historian who follows his subjects' break with reality and ultimate demise; an amateur writer who becomes a best-selling novelist with the help of a ghostly typewriter; and a high school football team that is victorious because the coach is dabbling in witchcraft and produces an evil good luck mascot.

Two of the stories in Black Evening won Best Novella, Horror Writers of America Award. One story was a nominee for this same award and one other story was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Morrell stated that the first piece of advice he received as a young writer was to write about what he feared most. Obviously he took that advice to heart and left us with some chilling entertainment.

Bobby Baseball is an incredible book. Its about a boy who loves baseball so much he calls himself Bobby Baseball. Bobby wants to become a major league pitcher, but he has to start at his own Mustang league. The middle of the book is very good and it makes it so you won't want to stop reading. The ending is very strange and you will need to make up your own opinion if its good or not!
Harry age 10

When I read Bobby Baseball I knew I would love it. The reason is that I love baseball. I would say this book made me love to read books. I would recommend this book to kids who love to learn about growing up and baseball. This is a great book for ages 9-13. Especially kids who absaloutly love baseball.

Bobby Baseball by: Robert Kimmel Smith Illustrated by: Alan Tiegreen. This story first takes place in Bobby Elia's home.He lives with dad,brother,mom and grandpa. This is about a boy who loves baseball and has a dream of being a pitcher in the pros. Then... owning a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He got on a team then after three games he quits. Find out why. I give this story a 5 star rating because I like baseball too.

This collection of Phoebe Gloeckner's comics is definitely not for the faint of heart, but it's worth a reading. If you haven't read her novel, Diary of a Teenage Girl, I think you will find this book a better introduction to her work. The themes are much the same and the comic art is very well done.
The subject matter is pretty bleak.

I can't say enough about this author/artist. I've just finished reading the book and am almost speechless. For anyone out there still dealing with demons of their own less than perfect childhoods, this book takes on the feel of a close friend in the same situation. The author, in a semi-autobiographical fashion, recounts a childhood of sexual abuse, drug abuse, and general coming-of-age well before it ever should. Full of amazing illustrations (Gloeckner is a lauded medical illustrator as well as excellent cartoonist), this book is sure to please anyone looking for something different, and in my case, cathartic. I don't think I could begin to recommend this book highly enough. I'm just glad that I live in a day and age where this book is not only allowed to be published, but can earn accolades as well (the least of which is from me). Thank you, Phoebe!

A Child's Life is hard to read but even harder to turn your eyes away from. Her child-like drawings combined with adult events and content perfectly express the difficult adolescent limbo between girl and woman.