Mark Robert Waldman has put together a real gem in THE SPIRIT OF WRITING, and it's my absolute pleasure to have been a small part of it. It's amazing to read classic essays on the subject of writing by such luminaries as Twain, Faulkner and Steinbeck and contemporary pieces by such diverse scribes at Stephen King and Erica Jong. I particularly loved reading Janet Fitch's "The Capes of Anais Nin," which takes us into her mind well before her WHITE OLEANDER was an Oprah Book Club selection. To read that she thought at one point that "there was a very distinct possibility I would never sell anything as long as I lived" and to realize the success that came her way is refreshing and reminds us all that being a writer is not for sissies! More folks will tell you to quit than will encourage the pursuit. But, if you love words as I do, you'll understand what Fitch was saying...and you'll keep THE SPIRIT OF WRITING nearby to forever inspire you!!

"Writers love language. They play with words, rolling them around on the page, arranging and rearranging them until they come alive. The meanings are stretched and changed, and if the writer is successful, he or she will lure the reader into that mysterious world where fiction and reality blur."
These words were penned by Mark Waldman, who edited this amazing collection of literary gems. Written by award-winning writers and poets, and several as-yet-unknown new talents, these authors open their hearts to the reader, sharing the most intimate adventures of their lives, moments that are frequently filled with vulnerability, pain, and ecstasy. The Spirit of Writing exemplifies the writer's life in a way that inspires us to write and read, and then to write some more. In many of the stories, you will witness how a writer's life unfolds. You'll roam through childhood memories, nostalgic and sometimes trajic, discovering what inspired them to write. These authors write lyrically, playing with subtle nuances of tone. And for those who want to write better, there are mountains of literary advice.
Humor also abounds in this delightful collection of essays. From Mark Twain's hilariously brutal attack upon poets to the wild and sexy muse of Henry Miller, I laughed my way through the pitfalls and pratfalls that plague a writer's life (in Hamilton's essay, she literally gives birth to a six pound book). Even the classic essays by mixed pathos with humor, as in Joseph Conrad's monologue with his pen that drives him mad. And imagine what the poet Peter Joris must suffer through when the letters and words keep falling off his page (Joris' story is one of a half-dozen experimental pieces that demonstrate the cutting edge of creative writing today).
One story, "Clawing at Stones," touched me deeply. It was written by Sindiwe Magona, a well-known black author who calls herself "a migrant worker," a South African woman who lives in the Bronx and works for the United Nations. "I am convinced," she writes, "that it is only by probing both the joys and woundings of time that we might be blessed and empowered to affect the future." She talks about the dangers that women of color face, especially if they write about the atrocities they see. Through such memoirs, we begin to understand the darker forces that guides a writer's pen. Several other stories in this anthology, like Lia Scott Price's "Without Wings," also illuminate the suffering that have driven many women to write.
Perhaps we are all "clawing at stones" and "fighting without wings," living with our stories inside. And with the memoirs that this unique anthology holds, perhaps it will inspire more people to write. About the truth, the pain, and joy that fills our lives.

I just finished reading Without Wings by Lia Scott Price and decided I had to write to say how much I enjoyed the story. While reading it, I felt the pain, the anguish, the pure and raw emotions from her characters. I am so greatly impressed. To finally stumble upon a writer with a gift for storytelling, I would just like to say congratulations on this, what I consider to be a masterpiece of a story. I hope to read more of her works! --A new found fan.

Not that short books are inherently bad or good, but this tiny volume is able to pack it in without wasting words. I am amazed at how Lupton is able to express such profound and challenging concepts with such clarity and directness without coming across as anything less than loving and wanting us to love God more, and live accordingly.

Although this book is over 10 years old, the stories and lessons are still very applicable, and I can imagine the same situation occuring in inner cities everywhere. The issues are still around, and people are still yearning for the solution of Jesus Christ.

We American suburbanite Christians need to challenge our mindset, our assumptions that we have been so content with for so long. This book is a great place to start.

The strength of this book lies in its total honesty and realistic look at life in the inner-city living life and doing ministry among the urban poor. Lupton doesn't shy away from the hard questions, but answers them boldly with the words of Jesus. He exhorts us to be radical in our servanthood of our neighbors, and to sacrifice ourselves for others. In other words, he just calls us to what Jesus calls us to. This book is very easy and quick to read, but the lessons learned in this book can be pondered and worked out in a real-life context over and over again. This is certainly one of the best books I have ever read that encourages you to take the Gospel seriously in the inner-city. It's worth far more than the time it will take you to read.

Having worked in urban ministries, I can realte much more to Lupton's book than I can to any stories from the mainstream media. He draws the reader right in to the realities of urban life, and in his delightful vignettes makes his neighbors your neighbors. He takes what the media might call "street people" and helps us see each one as a PERSON with a face, personality, and most importantly, a soul.

The following is an article that appeared in the National Post, Toronto, May 11, 2000

(Headline: Photography book award, by Finbarr O'Reilly, National Post)

Vancouver-based photographer Art Perry has won the second Roloff Beny Photography Book Award for The Tibetans. The country's top photography book award, presented last night in Toronto, earns Perry a cash prize of $30,000. His American publisher, Viking Studio/Penguin Putnam, also gets $20,000, while two runners-up, Courtney Milne and Linda Rutenberg, get $5,000 each. Perry, who is a lecturer at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, spent five years travelling throughout Tibet and the exiled Tibetan communities in India and Nepal, documenting with a camera the people he met along the way - monks, nomads, city dwellers. Through the Dalai Lama, Perry gained access to seldom-visited monasteries in remote regions where he captured a traditional way of life that is being threatened by the Chinese occupation of Tibet. In a current project, the Ottawa-born Perry has been documenting in both writing and photographs the fractured cultures of Northern and Southern Ireland. The project, which he began in 1998, is a lifelong dream of Perry, whose family is from Belfast. The award was created in memory of Roloff Beny, a world-renowned photographer who was born in Medicine Hat, Alta., and is intended to encourage excellence in photograph publishing.

The following is a review of Art Perry The Tibetans: Photographs that appeared in The Toronto Globe and Mail, April 8, 2000.

(Headline:"Turning the spotlight on photography books," by Martin Levin.) For many years, B.C. writer and photographer Art Perry has documented threatened cultures, including the Nubians and the Mayans. Here he turns his attention, and his fine black-and-white photographic sensibility, on Tibetans, the world's most famous enigmatic people. Perry takes us to remote monasteries, up the Chang Tang Plateau and to the Tibetan exile communities in India and Nepal. The whole conveys a powerful sense of meaning - and loss.

The following article appeared in The Vancouver Sun, May 10, 2000

'Tibetan images snag major prize for local photographer' by Michael Scott, Sun Visual Art Critic

Vancouver photographer Art Perry has won a major international award for his large-format photographic book The Tibetans: Photographs. Perry, an instructor at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, becomes the second winner of the $30,000 Roloff Beny Photography Book Award at a ceremony in Toronto. (Magnum photographer Larry Towell received the first Beny Award for his book El Salvador.) The publisher of Perry's 1999 book, Viking Studio (an imprint of Penguin Books), will share in the award, receiving a $20,000 prize of its own. Perry spent five years collecting images of Buddhist societies in the Himalayas, working primarily in Tibet, but travelling also to Ladakh and Nepal. Last year, the Washington Post named his book one of the year's 10 best. A Vancouver Sun reviewer wrote: "Perry takes us from the slightly familiar markets and brothels of Lhasa clear through to the monasteries and mountaintops that have not been otherwise documented. The text is as clear-eyed as the pictures, but the message it contains is not entirely pretty. Though Buddhism practiced by the Tibetans will certainly endure, Tibetan Buddhist culture is very much under attack, perhaps by we western cultural imperialists, certainly by the country's Chinese occupiers. Read it, or just look at the pictures, and those Free Tibet bumper stickers will seem a lot more immediate." Here in Vancouver, Perry teaches a multi-disciplinary course at Emily Carr on the history of bohemianism - a course that covers film, punk rock and jazz as well as visual art. (I start by telling my students to stay up all night before coming to class," he jokes.) Perry also teaches a course in contemporary literature, a field that has sparked his interest in his own Irish roots. He says he will spend part of the Beny prize money on a sabbatical year in County Monaghan in northern Ireland. Perry plans to pursue both writing and photography during this time. "I have to say I am very, very honoured to be receiving this award," he says. "My father had some of Roloff Beny's big books and I grew up handling those incredible pages. There aren't people in those images, but they were lush and magnificent." Expatriate Canadian photographer Roloff Beny made an international name for himself in the 1970s and early 1980s chronicling a world of sensual beauty, with major large-format books on subjects such as pre-revolutionary Iran and Italy. He died in 1984.

Definately one of Robert Vaughan best! I loved this book and so will you. An entertaining blend of history, adventure, drama, romance and spirituality. Vaughan gets you inside the minds and hearts of his characters. You will feel like you are with these young airmen on their flying missions in Europe during WWII. A page turner that you wont want to put down right up to the magical ending. You will want to share it with others.

'Touch the Face of God', takes the reader on a journey through two years of the air war against Germany during World War Two. Focusing mainly on the 605th Heavy Bombardment Group, a handful of bomber pilots are introduced; their hopes and fears as well as those of their loved ones, and the toll such trying times takes on their strength and faith.
Mark White, a top-notch theologian who nevertheless finds it difficult to rely on God is the main lead, accompanied by his close friend, Army Chaplain Lee Grant. Grant, one of a long line of military men, not only tries to minister to the needs of the bomber pilots, but must also endure consistent criticism from his commanding officer and father for his decision to become a chaplain instead of a combat soldier. Mark's sister, Susan, elopes with her Army boyfriend just before he's sent into combat in Italy, while Mark's girlfriend, Emily, is chosen to represent 'Rosie Riveter's' in a traveling USO show. Each character is in some way related to the next, down to and including the character of a young Tuskegee airman who ultimately saves Mark's life, expertly interweaving points of view and developing cultural and religious differences between the large cast of characters.
Each well-developed character in this emotional novel is brought to life under Vaughan's skilled pen, exploring the everyday fears of not only combat soldiers, but also those that are left behind to wait and worry. A fast moving plot that carefully balances action, dialog and narrative Touch the Face of God offers a gut-wrenching and emotional read while at the same time offering a detailed though 'painless' history lesson.
This riveting novel provides a great read for a wide range audience, spanning young adult to adult, and while geared toward the Christian market will also appeal to readers beyond its market base. Author of dozens of works, Vaughan is not only a military veteran whose experience and research shine through the words of his prose, but he was also nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his 'The Valkyrie Mandate'. Vaughan's ability to create a highly emotional, action-filled account of one of the country's most trying endeavors with such personal perspective and undeniable impact makes Touch the Face of God a must read.

Robert Vaughan's new inspirational novel of World War II aviators touched my heart in very special ways. I am of the generation known as the "Baby Boomers," that is, not the "greatest" generation. But I value good history and good historical fiction, especially when there is a strong spiritual message in such writing. Certainly, Touch the Face of God qualifies on all counts. It is exciting adventure, wonderful human interest, sad and uplifting, and it presents a picture of a time now seemingly long past -- but a time that has shaped our own in so many ways. Like some of the other reviewers, I have followed Robert Vaughan's writing career (especially the American Chronicles, published several years ago), and I think that he is getting better and better as a writer and storyteller. I eagerly look forward to his next work of fiction from Thomas Nelson.

War Stories by Babcock is a wonderful book for a travelor to own and read. The individual vignettes are both historically informative as well as entertaining. It is an easy book to get out and read when time permits and then put away...the hundreds of stories make it very convenient to stop and start reading. I believe this book is a "must read" for Americans who wish to know about the life and times of Americas combat soldiers as told by them. I plan on using this book as a gift to friends and family because of its historical depiction of Americas fighting forces.

War Stories-Utah Beach to Pleiku is a perfect book for the traveling person to read...you can pick it up and read as many fascinating stories as time permits...put it away...and then resume whenever. The individual vignettes are both historically informative as well as most entertaining. I plan on purchasing several copies of this masterful work to give as Chrismas gifts to friends and family. This book is a real sleeper...and it needs to be discovered by reading Americans who care about significant historical relevance. The book is an interesting mix of interesting stories as seen through the eyes of Americas combat soldiers. Some stories are funny...some sad...and some allow all non-combatants a glimpse of the horror of war.

Here's a book that will truly define the day to day life of a soldier. Sometimes scary, sometimes funny, always showing the human side of our men in combat. As a grunt, artilleryman, a driver, a signal corp, or any other MOS, this book hits the truth,as told by those who actually did the combat and/or support. The illustrious history of The 4th Infantry Division speaks well for our fighting men from the beaches of Normandy till Viet Nam. All combat vets will appreciate the stories and everyone will get a very personnal glimpse of the inner warrior and what drives him. Who knows, you might find a story from someone you know or from someone from your area.In the 4th Infantry, Rambo might have been a cook!

I found this book to be inspiring. While reading Untangling IT, I realized that I've become the manager that I aspired to be. It is a benchmark that can be used to measure one's effectiveness. It is soup to nuts for IT management without a ton of theory. It is practical common sense, organized in a manner that makes it an easy reference. The style is light, the examples ring a bell, and the quotes made me realize that we, the IT managers, are a unique community with common challenges.

One of my favorite speakers is now one of my favorite writers. In "Untangling IT" Tipton scores with a must read for not only those aspiring to manage IT, but also those working in software and technology companies. It certainly will be made available to the management in my company.

The information Tipton provides is rare. It is not like the profundity of books on IT theory or IT mechanics - it is dead center on the art and attitudes of practicing IT. I wish I had something like this to mentor me and help shape my attitudes when I was first starting out on my career.

IT is an entirely different animal to which very little from the traditional business leadership books applies. Bob Tipton's "Untangling IT" is a fast read and is full of relevant examples of how to successfully bridge the worlds of business and technology. Whether you are in IT or your business success depends on sound technology(and the people who keep it running), I would strongly recommend this book!

I'm a chem e of 15 years beginning an MS CS degree. A PHD candidate CS friend of mine recommended this book. My programming in C class uses Deitel. Deitel is very poor in explaining the basics of functions and pointers. Lafore does not go into as much depth as Deitel, but does an excellent job with the basics of arrays, functions, pointers, and the syntax around them. By the time Deitel got to fucntions, pointers and pointers to functions from within other functions, I got lost because I couldn't follow the synax in the examples with any certainty. Lafore saved me. I read the chapter on functions and the first 5 pages on pointers and gained a much clearer understanding of the basics. I was then able to understand the more in depth examples of Deitel. I deduct one star for Lafore's lack of depth.

Its a good and well written book. This was my first book which I used to delve into programming. Found it very useful. Cannot be really used as reference, but its good to clear your concepts of OOP.

LeFore's book is a great book for beginning programmers. I have taught C/C++ at our local community college and have often recommended this book to students and friends. It is well written and not overly complex. It has clear explanations of constructs and good examples. Kudos to the author. All beginning books should be so easy to understand.

This is a fine entry in the category of Well-written, Wryly-humorous Books About the Trials of Ordinary Life That Also Contain a Suprising Amount of Useful Information. If that sounds like an excessive qualification, it isn't, since the book is about houses, a subject dear, or dire, to the hearts of very many middle-class married men.

David Owen definitely writes as a guy. It's conceivable that a woman could enjoy this book, in the same way that some men enjoy reading Erma Bombeck. It's also true that many a woman these days finds herself, willy-nilly, the sole proprietor of some "huge box filled with complicated things that want to break," and so will see that this book is essentially inspirational and non-gendered, and will read it anyway. It's for anyone who has a house and doesn't know how that house works. Because if you have a house and don't know something about how it works, you will regret it, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

The author is a writer for, among other publications, "The New Yorker", and he has the easy, colloquial, accomplished style that we associate with that magazine. This is not a "humor" book that tries to milk laughs out of the trials of a hapless urbanite who buys a 200-year-old farmhouse and gets his comeuppance. However, he was indeed a Manhattan apartment dweller with a wife and two young children who decided to buy a 200-year-old farmhouse in Connecticut, and certain mishaps and learning experiences did follow from that action. Some are laugh-out-loud funny, but mostly you will find yourself reading along with a smile that is composed of one part sympathy and two parts relief ("at least my house isn't THAT screwed-up!").

Mainly, though, in the course of your reading you will learn a lot. David Owen is a professional writer, and he knows how to research a topic, be it wallboard or lumber or electricity. (Perhaps the finest part of the book is the section on wallboard and plaster.) But he's also just an ordinary guy and a home-owner, until fairly recently just as butt-ignorant as you about how a house works. He lives in a this-old-house sort of place, and most of us don't. (Although once-fine old houses do present an implicit challenge that some of us fantasize about taking on, when our skills are a bit more honed.) His discussions, though, are firmly rooted in what many of us brood about on an almost daily basis: ugly walls, bad wiring, roofing leaks and wet basements.

But courage! A house need not be a millstone. It can be that fort Mom never let you build. If you're a grownup you can actually go out and buy power tools and plywood and all sorts of other neat stuff, and then you can come back home and make your house better.

Or worse. One of the virtues of this volume is its cheerful attitude toward working on one's home: that it is essentially a pilgrimage. Nothing is ever final, and every failure, every flub, teaches you something. Perfection is not the object, but rather, engagement. After a number of years of living in it, and coping with it, your home will become, for better and/or worse, an extension of yourself. If you love yourself, eventually you will love your house, too, with all its endearing faults.

This book is the story of the author's renovations of his newly-purchased colonial-era house. In the process, Owen learns a great deal about how houses work and how they're built...and he makes a lot of mistakes.

Somehow do-it-yourself books always make me feel less than competent. It looks so easy in the book. Owen perfectly captures the learning process involved with getting to know an old house. In the process, he passes along much of what he's learned and frequently makes me laugh out loud.

Anyone who has lived in, or, especially, tried to improve, an old house should read this book.

Have you ever wondered why you couldn't just use the paint they use for nuclear power plants, for your house? Wouldn't it be a lot more durable? David Owen has wondered - and visited the manufacturer who makes nuke paint, to get the answers.

Also among the choicest bits in a book that is full of great moments: the description of a layer of ugly wallpaper over a layer of ugly paint over a layer of ugly wallpaper over a layer of ugly paint...

Read this book during that break from stripping paint; have a tall glass of iced tea with it. And rejoice in the fact that even though it's 100 degrees and you're working on your house, at least you are not on an aluminum ladder near electrical lines in the rain.

I give copies of this book to friends as housewarming gifts for their first house...; we had to buy two copies for ourselves, as we don't want to run the risk of losing our only copy if someone borrows it.

What a great book about in my opinion the best songwriters! The Shermans had the opportunity to be with Disney during what I believe was the peak of the Disney Co. Their songs have warmed the hearts of millions of people across the world. My mother had never heard of the Shermans but whenever I sing their songs she says "I love that song, I didn't know they wrote that..." I can count on their songs being family friendly and joyful. I love Winnie the Pooh was not at all surprised when I discovered who wrote the songs! I never get tired of reading Walt's Time. The pictures are great and layout is so different. It is fun to read the background stories that is behind each song. Such as A Spoon full of Sugar and how Robert's son gave them the inspiration. I know the price makes it difficult for some of us. I personally do not own the book, but I love to borrow it from my library. It is a must read for every Disney and Sherman fan out there!

This book is truly the gem of my library... A beautiful look at the careers of Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman! Reading this book brought back so many memories! Little did I realize that so many of my favorite Disney (and even non-Disney) musical films all had one special thing in common... the music of the Sherman Brothers.

This wonderful book is formatted like a huge scrapbook... its fun to read, and just packed with rare photos, cartoons and other memorabilia that would delight any reader.

Wow!, What a feast of fun! Here's the story of two of this century's most prolific and popular songwriters, the Sherman Brothers, finally cronicled in a superb scrapbook. Discover the Sherman Brothers' insights into the enigma that was Walt Disney, and learn of their dream job with this man.. who nurtured their talent, producing a sound that is truly instantly recognisable, the world over. These are the guys who created "the biggest word you ever heard", who left us singing of a "small, small world".. and gave lyrical life to a "fantasmagorical machine" called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

This is a lovingly remembered book by the Dick and Bob, put together with the help of a few amazingly dedicated fans. Bruce & David and Jeff have produced another gem of a book. With them, too much is never enough.. the photographic treasures, the office cartoons all give the impression of being invited to dinner with the Shermans. I was lucky enough to hear the Shermans at the piano for a preview of this book at a Disney fan's convention last year. That was a night I'll never forget.. as the brothers sang their way through the songs of my childhood. Now the feeling of that night (and my childhood) has been captured in print, and I can't be happier! Thanks guys, it's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious !

As mystery and conspiracy novels go, this is not a bad one. There are a number of plot threads involving the fictional Lieutenant McKittredge, the wounded hero of the Battle of Ball's Bluff, and historical figures, not the least of which are General Hooker and President Lincoln. Unfortunately, "not bad" is about the only accolade I can give.

There is nothing particularly original here. The relationship between McKittredge and his recruiter/mentor from the intelligence service is reminiscent of Holmes and Watson, but not as well done. The character of Hooker can be just about anything an author wants to make it for Hooker left no memoirs and died relatively young. What is known is that he had a reputation for taking care of his troops, which was laudable, but also for complaining, drinking and whoring. All of which made him legendary in the armies of both sides in the Civil War.

The author may know a lot about the Civil War; I expect that he does. In fact, the descriptions of wartime Washington are very good indeed. I find it difficult to accept the plot line of having a lot of defective gun carriages changed out just before a battle, however. Maybe it could happen as quickly as the book says, but I doubt it. Granted I've never done it, but...

Not so good are the anachronisms. He speaks of drunken looters wearing women's clothing, including brassieres. Quite a feat since bras weren't invented until 1889 and didn't see wide use until the late 1920's. Also there is much made of ceremonies to award medals. In fact the conspiracy plot hinges on one. However, giving medals was very unusual. The most common method to recognize battle prowess was to give a brevet rank higher than the rank actually held by the soldier. Custer had brevet ranks, for example. The phrase before a battle was often "A brevet or a coffin!"

No, this is not as historically accurate as so many reviewers say. It is an intriguing story, pretty well told and full of speculation about a number of things. Based on the jacket reviews on this book, I also picked up his earlier and award winning "Stonewall's Gold." Since reading this book, I'm not going to bother with it. (Aren't there any editors out there who actually READ for accuracy any more?!)

One of the best civil war reads in quite some time. I could not put it down - the pace, action and writing style are truly impressive. I recommend this for every summer reading list.
Hooker's tale is one for all times.

I bought this book after reading a review by Nelson Demille, one of my favorite novelists. I know it's a cliche to say that "I couldn't put this book down." Actually, I did, and that's because I wanted it to last longer. The ending on the barren island off the coast of Maine was stunningly poignant. As Demille wrote, "great writing coupled with great history."