While the jacket blurb does a decent job of describing the general gist of Strangers in Paradise: Volume 2, I don't know that it covers a lot of the tone of the book. There is a lot of material covered in this book, which makes sense, since it compiles nine comics into a single volume: Volume 2, Issue 1: I Dream of You; Volume 2, Issue 2: Someone to Watch Over Me; Volume 2, Issue 3: Echoes of Home; Volume 2, Issue 4: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?; Volume 2, Issue 5: Something I Can't Hear; Volume 2, Issue 6: Tic Toc; Volume 2, Issue 7: I Talk to the Wind; Volume 2, Issue 8: Do You Remember Yesterdays?; and Volume 2, Issue 9: A Good Night's Sleep.

(For those who have not read Strangers in Paradise, Volume 1, I recommend that you do so before reading this.)

The book starts with Katchoo returning from a mysterious prolonged trip about which she will not speak to find that Francine has been coping with the rather explosive breakup with her ex-boyfriend Freddie by eating. And eating. And eating some more. And it seems that, as far as David is concerned, absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder, and his unrequited love for Katchoo has not abated.

But Francine's ballooning weight and David's infatuation are the least of Katchoo's problems. The world seems to be conspiring to make sure she never forgets her past, and that she - and her friends - will pay for her sins. First, the mysterious trip to Canada. Then, she appears to have acquired a follower, one who doesn't have her best interests in mind. But even more frightening than Katchoo's follower is the mysterious dark woman for whom he works: Mrs. Darcy Parker and her minions, Bambi and Samantha. They will stop at nothing to bring Katchoo back into the fold, including using her friends as bait.

But before that, a whole slew of other problems pop up. For instance, if you think Francine is neurotic, you should meet her mother! And running into Freddie and his new fiancee doesn't help her state of mind much, either. And who says that Katchoo can be the only one with secrets? There may be more to David than meets the eye. And do you remember our friend Detective Walsh from Volume 1? Well, if you're a fan, never fear! You get to see more of the moustachioed investigator as he tries to track down the trackers. And what's with Emma and this house in Hana, anyway?

All in all, this volume is much more action- and emotion-packed than Volume 1, and also has a much higher allocation of violence. You get to know the primary characters in this tale (Francine, Katchoo, and David) much better this time around, and begin to feel their pains. If you enjoyed the first volume (you did read the first volume first, right?), I suspect you'll be completely hooked by the time you're done with Volume 2.

I have been collecting comics for as long as I can remember, and sometime around the time I hit high school, I lost my interest in comics, believing that they were pretty much all the same. I got tired of the same repeating storylines and lame plots. For some reason, I can't remember, I picked up an issue of Strangers In Paradise, trying to waste some time in a book store, probably. What I had come to discover was a wonderful, touching and suspenseful story that went above and beyond what any other comic besides The Sandman was doing at that time. It made you love, and care for the characters in ways that made them seem real (or made you love them so much that you wish they were real). If you are like I was, tired and put up with the comic book industry, you should pick up this book and fall in love with the people in it the way that everyone who reads it does.

I've been collecting comic books since the late 1950's when there was a great variety of quality comics to choose from. I bought Superman, Dennis the Menace, Archie, Mutt and Jeff, Little Lulu, Ritchie Rich, Nancy and Sluggo, etc. But for the past 20 years or so there's been only two types of comics to choose from -- superhero and satanic trash. Except for Strangers in Paradise. In my opinion, Terry Moore has created the best comic book series ever. And it's a pity that more people don't know about SIP. So many people are addicted to the TV soap operas. They should be so lucky to discover SIP! If they did, Terry's subscriber list would be in the millions and SIP would be a household word!

Bebe Moore Campbell writes from personal expierance in the novel, Sweet Summer. Campbell tells about growing up as an African American girl living in the South during the 60's. Through this story I learned the prejudice of racism, the struggle of growing up with a divoraced family, and the will to live life. This story touched my heart, because it provided me to a differnt point of view about life.

Once in a great while - about as often as Halley's Comet - a book comes along which stirs the soul and rattles your heart; a book which can transcend race, gender, age, place and time. This is such a book. Moore-Campbell is a magnificent writer; her verses poetic, her theme universal. Her autobiogrophy tells the story of growing up black and young without a full-time father, and the affects it can have on a child. It's not just her story; she shares this life with her cousin Michael (again, young and black without a full-time father), their Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts, and assorted 'father figures': Dads, Uncles, Reverands, Neighbors. One child (BeBe) can learn to adapt graciously, while the other (Michael) has a tougher time, as they each learn difficult 'truths' about their patriarchy. Beautifully written, the reader hangs on every word, as this wonderful story unfolds.

This is a wonderful book and I recommend it to any one out there living or growing up with and without a father.

The Canterville Ghost is a small book, which is quite easy to read.
It is a funny story and there are a lot of jokes. Sometimes it is a little bit boring., but when you like the spiritual then you like this book.
It is a fantasy history, who you can use your own imagination. It is also a sad story, although superficially there is a happy ending.
There you see the difference between the serious minded English people and the practical Americans
You can see parallels between the story and the writer. Oscar Wilde had a very difficult life at the end, and in his story it is the ghost, which suffers a lot because of the fact that he has no audience who is willing to pay attention to his pranks.
I think it is a good book to read at school. And I have loved the jokes very much and I like the mystical and spiritual side of this book too.

The Canterville Ghost is a small book, which is quite easy to read. The difficult words have a translation in German.

It is a funny story and there are a lot of jokes. Sometimes it is a little bit boring., but when you like the spiritual then you like this book.
It is a fantasy history, who you can have your own imagination. It is a sad history, but there is a happy ending.

There you see the different between the serious spiritual English people and the practical American people.

You can see the similarity between the story and the writer. Oskar Wilde has had a very difficult live, and in his story is the ghost a thing, which have a bad live.

I think it is a good book for read at school, because it is a good English. And I have loved the jokes very much and I like the mystical and spiritual in this book.

I like this story really. It is a story of a ghost who want to fright the new American family but they are too easy and they aren't frightened. So he has a mission to do.
This story is unusual for a ghost. It is a interesting and thrilling story. It is also easy to read for students. I didn't feel bored, when I read this book, because you are in this thrilling situation. But it is also very funny and your face will be touched with a smile. So the whole story is very good.

I will keep this book forever as a reminder that books withfive star ratings from Amazon customer reviews can be completelosers.

Set in Germany in the mid-80's, this book is a poorlywritten, shallow, unfocused fictional account that even the Library of Congress Publication Data on page ii classifies as "Juvenile Literature" and the back cover categorizes the book as "Science Fact/Science Fiction." "Juvenile Literature," could refer to both the author as well as the intended audience.

Ostensibly, the author/narrator is a courier between "Helmut" a character based on Karl Koch aka Hagbard of Cuckoo's Egg infamy and "Karl Mueller" a character also based in the Cuckoo's Egg milieu, that of Marcus Hess. In this account Koch burns in a car fire in town instead of alone in the forest outside Hannover. Do not expect to read any character development in this account however, the author is occupied wandering this account from hacking to Argentina defeating the German (West) soccer team in the 1986 World Cup.

Neither should one expect to read about hacking, one should especially not expect any ethical conscience on computer intrusions.

There are superficial undertones of activity by intelligence (KGB?) and law enforcement (FBI?) agencies, but they remain undeveloped as well.

Fully one third of the book's 91 pages are filler, including a glossary, character biographies, a couple pages on the alleged conspiracy of silence on Koch's suicide and a very shallow treatment of some hacking history including Dark Avenger and the MOD. Printed on 8" X 5" stock in large fonts with plenty of space between lines, the book costs about a penny/sentence.

You have been warned....

I must have been reading a different book to the person below. I thought that Internet Spy was fantastic. Sure it was short but since when was size that important? It's a really enjoyable book.

The book "Internet Spy", by Ian Probert, is a great book. It is an in-depth, fast-paced novel about computer hacking. If you're into that sort of thing, than you'll love this book. The main character in the book was at the home of his friend, Karl. Karl shows the boy (who remained unnamed throughout the book) the Internet. The boy was fascinated. However, the boy's interest was defeated when he found out that the man was spying. He quickly ran out. This isn't the most impossible book to read, topping out at under one hundred pages, but it is a good one. If you're into the world of computers, than you'll definitely want to read this book.

I am a great Julian Simon / Björn Lomborg fan, but this book has a limited number of mostly useless diagrams, especially from non-US perspective. But any other Simon book.

It is fashionable to bemoan the state of the world. The conventional wisdom is that global warming, Terrorism, drug abuse, crime, AIDS and all the rest of the crises threatening humanity lead us to the conclusion that the "good old days" were somehow better, safer and saner than today.

But, if things are so bad why is infant mortality going down around the world? If things are on the edge of anarchy why are proportionately fewer of us hungry, or sick today than one hundred years ago. If things are going to hell in a handbasket why is our life expectancy steadily improving?

These are inconvenient questions. The answers are tough on the prophets of doom.

Luckily, the conventional wisdom is wrong. Stephen Moore and Julian Simon prove this convincingly. Facts are often inconvenient. But, if you want to know the facts, this is the book for you.

It's Getting Better all the Time is an upbeat statistical reference consisting of factual text and colorful graphs.

Fascinating and fun, the book is an essential reference for authors and speakers. It is a treasury of statistics.

And the book has a great title.

As a publisher, author of 28 Books, 109 revised editions, six translations and over 500 magazine articles as well as a consultant to the book publishing industry, I spend much of my time doing research. I will refer to this book again and again.
Dan Poynter, Para Publishing.

A friend of mine has praised this book to the skies, so I bought a copy, expecting cover-to-cover laughs and revealations. Instead, what I got was a -very- disorganized, rambling series of partial recollections which were, despite the disclaimer in the introduction, the memoirs of a single pilot. Most of the stories failed to be funny in any way and were only moderately shocking.

Most irritating of all was Chapter Twelve, which dealt with the author's anger at the Tailhook scandal/witchhunt and which had absolutely, positively nothing at all to do with anything else in the book. The chapter didn't belong. It was a distraction. Had any editing been done on the book, it should have been deleted entirely.

There were some good parts, and the first two-thirds of the book would be quite nice with some serious re-arranging and reworking to present a coherent and orderly progression of events. The material about test-flying the Cutlass and the obscenely stupid FlexDeck program are must-reads, but the section on Apollo 1 adds nothing to the reams of material written about that tragedy, and the material on Mr. Moore's training runs hot and cold. As a minor note, the tendency to use technical terms without explaining them to the casual reader makes for difficult reading in some spots.

All in all, if I'd found this in a library first, I never would have bought it; now that I have it, I can't recommend it to others, but I won't be giving my copy away either.

Kris Overstreet

... and many of them have honored places in my library: Colonel Robert Scott's "God Is My Co-Pilot", Heinz Knoke's excellent and sadly unknown "I Flew for the Führer", Bob Hoover's "Forever Flying", Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger's "Lost Moon" (which is as much an autobiography of Lovell as a recounting of the Apollo 13 incident)...

... and then there's this book. If you go into "The Wrong Stuff" expecting another self-congratulatory throttle-jockey memoir (not that there's anything wrong with those :), you'll be sorely disappointed, because John Moore isn't the self-congratulatory throttle-jockey type. He seems frankly surprised that he survived his aviation career, and his tongue-in-cheek delight at being alive permeates the work. Somehow, this man managed to wind up involved in some of the wackiest projects in aviation history, and his wry reminiscences make this the funniest flyboy book in history. I'm just amazed, with his karma, that Moore didn't end up testing the Pogo Planes.

Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Cdr. John Moore tells it like it is (or was), back then when test flying was not as sophisticated as it is now, along with the trials of the line Carrier Pilot, during "The Korean Thing". An easy, can't-put-it-down read which had me up 'till 4 AM. It gives the reader a poignant, down-to-earth glimpse of life as he saw it and lived it, often on the edge.

Meyhaley Lancaster is truly the most weirdly interesting creatures to come along in the 20th century. what makes it more interesting, is that her nephew and i was very good friends .Joe Arrington was the son of Marvin and Mary Arrington ,born about 1927.There was nothing weird about joe but he said years after mehayles passing the locals kids were still finding coins under her cabin.

ORACLE OF THE AGES, REFLECTIONS ON THE CURIOUS LIFE OF FORTUNE TELLER MAYHAYLEY LANCASTER is a winner! The author, Dot Moore,
went to Savannah, Georgia in April of 2002 to receive the Hawes Award from the Georgia Historical Society. The Award is given each year for the "best book of local history" for the State of Georgia!
I understand that she researched this character and her background in Heard and surrounding Georgia rural counties for more than 20 years.
This book is easy to read. It is fun to read. I highly recommend
this book to anyone who enjoys stories about eccentric charachters and likes a good story.
ORACLE is in its THIRD printing, I hear.
Order it now!

I think that the person who wrote the review from Sharpsbug,Georgia is an absolute priss. He had no right to insult my best friend Dot Moore.If the priss is reading this then
I'm telling him that he is a very impolite young man and I hope he learned a lesson from this. So priss, next time think before you say something in public. By the way I read the book myself and it's a mind boggling thriller.

the author of the marvelous, "care of the soul" writes another soulful blockbuster here in "original self". this is a collection of beautiful meditations on self knowledge, the soul, and the natural spirituality that springs forth when the soul is properly nurtured and listened to. ever the master of the subtle insight, mr moore gently shows us where to look and how to listen. i like reading a section upon rising early in the morning. the writing is beautiful, wise, and makes me want to joyfully be a better person. the book is beautifully made and his message is worth reading and contemplating over and over. he seems to see a depth in the reader that is uncanny. what treasures will he help you uncover? check this one out. its a treasure map and more.

Upon leaving Australia to move to the U.S.A., I weapt when I packed away my extensive library into heavy wooden crates,in an attempt to protect their wisdom, until I could return one day. I only had room to stash a few precious books into my suitcases which were to transport me safely until I arrived at a place where I was ready to rebuild a new library in the new homeland. Thomas Moore's books 'Care of the Soul' and 'Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life' were two of the six I packed. I couldn't imagine life without the nurturing I found within the pages of Thomas Moore's words. They are a pathway back to the safety of the soul when everything seems threatening, changing yet enticing.

I have gifted several copies of his work to friends at appropriate times in their lives when they too needed a constant companion. I lived his words and painted my house in rennaissance colours, played wildly romantic Italian operas, purchased a few antiques to gaze upon their craftsmanship and history and immersed my soul with renewed values around family love and passion for everyday simplicities and sanctuaries. I've lived Thomas Moore's work for several years now and it has made my life rich and rewarding.

I believe it was more than a synchronicity occurence when his recent book "Original Self" came into my life, again, coinciding with a trip to a far off place where I was considering another internal shift. It arrived right at a time when I was entertaining the idea (unfortunately, once again) to sell my soul to do a somewhat souless task. His message was simple but profound, return to my own authenticity and "Original Self" or chance loosing my soul. Since that fortunate time, I have been pouring over his words from this recent masterpiece like a child at play with a deep curiosity of how his writings have affected my life, again, in such a deeply mysterious way. Thomas Moore's books are part of my life and now, thanks to his urgings, my soul. Be assured, whatever he writes about is speaking directly to your soul. I can't imagine how anyone living, after reading his work, not knowing that they have just been touched by a master. But I know it happens to an unfortunate few.

Only read this book should you want to be roused by the intervention of divinely tender words or stirred by deep meditations about life. I suggest you buy his book and see it as part of the magical immersion into soul that Thomas Moore wants for you. You may in fact be able to reignite your passion to overcome the sufferings of your neglected soul and start to recognize the bitter ailments of a soul-less society so desperaely in need of nurturing. Or perhaps not, you may just return home to your "Original self".

Thomas Moore broke the mold when he wrote this one!...Moore took me everywhere inside myself, and drove me to the core of my soul. Everything that i had origionally thought about life, was turned inside out, upside down. But it was as if all these ideas were already seeds in me, yet they had been covered in a lot of petty, crappy, useless things. My soul was watered and i am now a child again. Unlearning all that i have been taught and reviewing all that was origionally in me! THis book was hard to understand at times, but after you read it over and over....it hits you like a brick! I recommend this book to anyone, and everyone.

This is a book that uses official state reports and documents to prove that defendant Dechaine is innocent of the murder for which he is serving life imprisonment in Maine. The evidence of innocence (and of prosecutorial misconduct) is substantial and convincing.

Someone who reviewed this book says that the time of death evidence (which proves the victim was killed when the defendant couldn't possibly have committed the crime) is flawed because there are variations that could affect the onset or rigor mortis. But that person never specifies any "variation" which could have made the defendant's guilt possible. In fact, no variation known to science could have put the time of death at an hour when the defendant could have killed that girl.

Then the reviewer tells us that some people are strangled, then linger for hours or days without expiring. But the state medical examiner testified that Sarah Cherry's neck was constricted to a diameter of 2 1/2 to 3 inches. When a throat is constricted that tightly, NO air can reach the lungs, NO oxygen gets to the brain, and NO ONE can live for more than a few minutes!!!!

It is obvious that some people try very hard to believe that the state got the right man. But their own evidence, which the prosecution carefully concealed from everybody, proves them wrong.

James Moore's "Human Sacrifice" is a compelling and chilling read, and the author, a former ATF agent, impresses with his own dogged investigation into the kidnap and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry and subsequent conviction of Dennis Dechaine. But after thoroughly following leads and closely examining evidence, Moore shows uncharacteristic carelessness when he draws conclusions meant to prove Dechaine's wrongful conviction.
The murder of Sarah Cherry in 1988 shocked the state of Maine for its frightening randomness and its unspeakable cruelty. But the state was also riveted by the accused--Dechaine, a young, attractive, mild-mannered farmer with no criminal record.
Circumstantial evidence against Dechaine was strong: his papers were found in the driveway of the home where Cherry had been babysitting when she was kidnapped; he was seen emerging from the woods the evening of the kidnapping not far from where Cherry's body would be found two days later; his truck was parked near the body; and rope from the truck had been used to bind Cherry's hands.
Four years after Dechaine's conviction (he is serving a life sentence at the state prison in Warren, Maine), Moore agreed to investigate the case for Trial and Error, a group of people convinced of Dechaine's innocence.
Supported by official police documents, trial transcripts and news reports, Moore retells the still-shocking story of Cherry's murder and examines the police investigation and the trial. He then presents evidence to support the Trial and Error group's gut feelings about Dechaine.
The problem is, Moore isn't nearly as thorough with his own conclusions as he is with the investigations done by others. He argues that Dechaine could not have killed Cherry because he was in police custody at her estimated time of death. Moore addresses the vagaries of that estimate intriguingly, but frustratingly,he dismisses in just one paragraph and without medical expert support the possiblility that Cherry died some hours after her injuries were inflicted. In fact, it is not infrequent for ligature strangulation victims to live in a vegetative state for hours, days, even years after injuries are inflicted -- yes, even when the neck is compressed to three inches in diameter as Sarah's was (an uninjured trachea is just one inch in diameter after all). Ligature strangulation deaths are usually due to asphyxia, not by the act of compression itself but by the swelling of trachea and tongue during or after the assault.
Moore also proposes a preposterous alternative scenario that has the perpetrator brashly taking a break from his assault on Cherry to plant Dechaine's papers in the driveway, then returning several hours later to finish her off even though police were by then searching that very area for her. Likewise he suggests the killer chose to assault Cherry near Dechaine's truck in order to frame its owner. Wouldn't he have been more worried about being seen?
Despite these flaws, the book is sharply written and hard to put down. Letters from Nancy Dechaine to her husband and his attorney are especially poignant. And Moore does pose some fascinating questions, particularly about the failure of police to question a pedophile who lived near the home where Cherry was babysitting. As writer John Cole put it a review of "Human Sacrifice": "Jim Moore's painfully truthful book ...gives us a rural Maine of criminal perversion, dark doings, incest, drug use and a decidedly unromantic look at how the sex drive dominates these so-called quiet, little towns."
Perhaps the most interesting question of all has not yet been addressed by Moore or anyone else who has written about this case: why are so many good and smart people more willing to concoct convoluted alternative scenarios than to believe what the evidence so straightforwardly shows?

While one reviewer took excessive pains to detail all the circumstantial evidence prosecutors used to fool jurors into convicting Dennis Dechaine, and sneered at author Moore's theory of how the real killer framed Dechaine, that reviewer failed to list the mountain of vital scientific evidence (documented by the author through official records) proving that Dechaine can't possibly be the killer -- evidence which prosecutors concealed illegally from defense lawyers. Prosecutors prevented DNA tests which now show that someone else committed the crime, they concealed evidence about the time of death, they concealed evidence given them by other witnesses, and they totally ignored blatant clues which led cops directly to the door of a pedophile living 1/2 mile from where the victim was abducted, a pedophile they were already prosecuting for a very similar rape of another 12-year-old girl.
Whatever some people want to believe, the scientific evidence and the evidence prosecutors deliberately concealed proves absolutely that Dechaine is innocent and THEY should be sent to prison!
For anybody that doesn't want to take my word, read the book and make your own judgment based on ALL the evidence documented in this book, including the facts the prosecutors hid from the jury!
This is an important book. If they can do this to one innocent man, they can (and will) do it to you!!!!

Former Mayor of Boston and U S Ambassador to the Vatican, Raymond Flynn draws a very personal and intimate portrait of Pope John Paul II. Through the various events, incidents and celebrations narrated with meticulous detail and color, the personality of the Pope comes alive to the reader. The impact the Pope has had on the average American public is truthfully brought out. This book will be of interest to an American Catholic who would be able to identify the personalities from American politics and Catholic religion, at the same time can feel along with Flynn in his admiration for this man of God. Indeed it's a smooth and delightful reading worthy of the Pope as well as of the Ambassador.

I have read many books about His Holiness Pope John Paul II, and this is by far the BEST book I have read about the Pope. It is very easy to read. Infact, once I started to read I could not stop until I finished the book. When I was done...I could not stop crying. Former Ambassador Flynn did an outstanding job in giving his reader a rare and personal glimpse of the Pope, that other authors who have written biographies about His Holiness simply cannot convey. I especially found the stories of the mother who lost her son, and when the Pope offered Flynn money stating it was not church money, but the Pope's own money to help pay for the medical bills of Flynn's oldest son very moving and touching. For those who have never met the Pope...after reading this book you will feel as if you not only met him, but have known the Pope as an intimate friend for years.

Ray Flynn has taken from his many experiences with Pope John Paul II and put together a highly interesting read. This is not your typical biography, although each stage of the Holy Father's storied life is mentioned. This book gives you the Pope up close and personal, in both his public and private dealings. What an absolutely incredible man this Karol Wojtyla is!!