This book is full of funny short anecdotes with lessons to be learned. It is highly recommended for the person on the go. And who's not? The stories are light and breezy, only 2 to 3 pages in length, so if need be, one can put the book down but it won't be by choice.

Mr. Sumerlin's common sense approach to life's problems is a breath of fresh air. One would think that the neighborly, value driven "Barber-osophies" defined by Mr. Summerlin would be a naturally occurring thing, but everyday interaction with people and buisnesses show that they are not. Mr. Summerlin shows show practicing such credos can lead to a happy and productive life.

The philosophy behind Barberosophy is that, with keen observation, extraordinary life lessons can be learned from everyday settings and ordinary people. The author takes an opportunity to draw principles of human relations, happiness, and success from daily encounters in his barbershop. Because this book is formatted into short vignettes, I found the stories and lessons to be accessible, and the book hard to put down! The author writes with an easy, down-to-earth style and a wit as intellegent as it is funny. I highly recommend this book for anyone who's become bored with the standard self-improvement niche books- but would appreciate a perceptive insight on human nature.

BOWIE IS ONE OF THE BEST FICTIONAL BIOGARPHY I'VE EVER READ. A MAGNIFICANT ACHIVEMENT OF FACT SUPPORTING FICTION TO RE-CREAT A STORY IN WORDS THAT WILL BRING TEARS TO YOUR EYES AND A LUMP TO YOUR THROAT.THE AWSOME TASK OF BIOGAPHICAL NOVELIST IS TO GATHER UP THE BONES OF LONG-DEAD PEOPLE AND BEREATH LIFE BACK INTO THEM.

The author seemed so knowledgeable on the subject of Jim Bowie. I didn't know some of the stories myself. I often wondered what went on prior to The Alamo and now I know. I would like to see the same type of Book come out about Crockett and Travis.

Eickhoff and Lewis have teamed together to compose the most complete account of a complicated, often oversimplified man. As a hero of the Alamo, James Bowie has been the victim of many myths. I believe Eickhoff and Lewis succeed at erasing the myths, yet keeping the mystery and magical qualities that seemed to surround the man, who some called "El Leon", or the lion, because of his impressive mane of red hair. Lewis published an article about Bowie last year, where he gave us a taste of what was to come in this book, Bowie. I recommend it, expecially the magical telling of the forging of the infamous knife that became Bowie's trademark.

Los Alamos is a full-color, 175-page, photographic portrait of a New Mexican town. These images, captured on film by master photographer William Eggleston, range from 1966 to 1974 and superbly capture the ups, downs, scenery, and close-ups of a living, breathing city. No text distracts from the full-page photographs, which are presented as the works of art they are. This large sized compendium is a welcome and recommended addition to any personal, professional, academic, or community library Photography collection.

Eggleston is a bit of a mystery. His photographs make you open your eyes wide and say, "Wow!" but it's hard to say what it is about them that is so stunning. This book is the best thing he has published to date and it offers the clearest window into Eggleston's genius that I've seen. Reproduced on large pages in rich colors that leap out and shake you until you splutter, these pictures bypass the intellect and kick your sense of raw beauty like a mule with a belly full of habaneros.

It's clear to you that the beauty is all about the color, or is it? What's happening with the composition? Soemthing is at the tip of your tongue, but try as you might, you can't say what makes these pictures so obviously works of great genius.

When you calm back down and try to figure how a book of pictures that look almost like snapshots could sting you so hard, the accompanying essay by Thomas Weski gives the best account of Eggleston's work that I've seen to date---short, but clearer and more insightful than Janet Malcolm's meditation on color and snapshots in Diana and Nikon or Eudora Welty's introduction to The Democratic Forest.

This book is stunning! A large number of Eggleston's photographs beautifully printed on good paper. "Los Alamos" is one of the best photography books I have seen in years.

Browsing through the Alamo gift store, I happened upon The Alamo Cat by Rita Kerr. I am an avid collector of children's books of all types, so I thought this would be the perfect addition to my collection. After each chapter, I would go find my cat (usually curled up asleep on my closet floor) and spend time caressing her. After the final chapter, I picked her up and held her close -- what a tearjerker! I only hope that I am one day able to talk with Rita -- I am an inspiring writer and I think talking with her would give me a much needed boost to get some things done! Now, I have to go back and buy the rest of Rita's books -- as well as check out where Ruby is buried!

This book is about a cat that gets caught in a fire and is found up in a tree. The rangers of the Alamo adopted this cat, Ruby, as their mascot. This is probably the best Rita Kerr book I've read. I used to live in San Antonio, so i met Rita Kerr. I have almost all of her books. Theyre all about Texas and many stories and legends about Texas. You should read all of Rita Kerr's books. They are great. Some other Rita Kerr books are: the Haunted House, A Wee Bit of Texas, and Tex's Tales. You should read all of them. You will love them. I recommend this book for everybody. I loved this book.

In "The Alamo in American History," author Roy Sorrels does much more than look at the 13 day siege of the mission-turned-fort in 1836. Sorrels begins with the arrival of American settlers and the influence of Spain and the Comanches on the region. After detailing how the widening gap between the rich and poor increased in the newly independent Mexico, Sorrels explains how originally the American settlers were welcomed as a buffer between the Mexicans and the Comanches. However, when Santa Ana's government tried to quash Texican autonomy, the result was an outright revolution. Sorrels includes short biographies of Sam Houston, James Bowie, Davy Crocket, James Fannin Walker, as he tells of how an old mission in San Antonio became the pivtoal point in the war for Texas independence. Of the various juvenile histories of the Alamo I have read this weekend, this one does the best job of explaining both the overall military situation and the specifics of the Alamo's defense, including several maps. Two chapters are devoted to the aftermath of the battle, including the victory at the Battle of San Jacinto that secured Texan independence. A final chapter completes the story of how Texas became the Lone Star State. Throughout the book are scattered Source Documents, such as Travis's "Victory of Death" message, while the illustrations are an effective mix of contemporary black & white photographs and paintings of the battle. In terms of the amount of information provides and the attention to military detail, "The Alamo in American History" goes beyond any other juvenile history of the siege I have yet seen. Teachers and students alike will probably more information than they need to expand what they find in their American history textbook. Other volumes of the In American History series include "The Battle of the Little Big Horn," "Native Americans and the Reservation," and "Japanese-American Internment."

This fine history of the Alamo is readable, accurate, and a fine introduction to the subject for young readers. It should be in every school library in the country. As a history buff with a special focus on Texas history, I heartily recommend it!

I love this book! It is wonderful and my definite favorite. Templeton gives an accurate description of Peaceful Mitchell, the Tennessee Volunteers, the Alamo, the battle and everything. The characters each have their own unforgetable personality, Peaceful's being very unique. This book definetly gets a 5 star rating.

This book is wonderful! It's my favorite. Peaceful Mitchell was a wonderful man; it's too bad there ain't much information on him. Alamo Soldier is where I "met" Peaceful and without a doubt he's my favorite Texan. Templeton's book tells an accurate description of Peaceful, the Tennessee Volunteers, and the Alamo.

I am impressed with the amount of primary sources researched for the writing of this book. Most books rely on secondary sources to a grest extent and fail to examine the accuracy of the primary accounts, but not Mr. Lindley. He got his information for this book "straight from the horses mouth". In some cases he even investigated the accuracy of the horse. It is not a book of shared opinions, but rather the evidence comes the first hand accounts of the individuals involved and the governmental records of this period of history. His exhaustive search of the governmental records is obvious. This tireless research of many years makes him uniquely different in this regard.

Mr. Lindley has obviously spent years at the State Archives
researching this book. The book contains 676 references, many
dating back to the 1830's. The list of references alone is well
worth the price of the text.

Without a doubt, some scholars are going to feel very uncomfortable since some of Mr. Lindley's conclusions do not agree with the accepted version we were taught in school. Especially since the author backs up his assertions with
documentation that dates back 160 years in some cases.

This book is a must for anyone with even a casual interest in
Texas history. We will certainly be hearing more about Mr. Lindley and his book Alamo Traces: New Evidence and New Conclusions.

The Anne of Green Gables series are wonderful books with a supporting detail every paragraph. Once you have read one Anne book, you can't stop reading them!

The Anne of Green Gables are wonderful books with tons of describing details.

Liza Wieland is an incredible writing talent. She is also a creative writing teacher in a California college and no one need apply the old adage to her about "those who can't do, teach." In fact, I'm really sad that she can't devote 100% of her time to writing. She only has one other novel out, which I promptly ordered. She has some short story collections too. She only has this one novel carried by my public library, which is unusual, as it carries just about everything. All I can say is, thank God for university presses or I guess this wouldn't have seen the light of day. Why was it deemed so non-commercial? Well, it is intelligent and I guess in most media and the arts that puts you in the hole. If you don't want to think, don't want to marvel over certain passages and reread them to fully appreciate them, this may not be for you, especially if you don't like gorgeous, beautiful, virtually poetic prose. If all you like is steamroller straight ahead plot driven fiction, she is not solely concerned with satisfying that reader need. What she does do is create one heck of a story and a cast of characters out of her imagination using one fact from the real world. That fact is that she pretends that the father in the story, who is living like a hermit in the mountains outside of Santa Fe, is the unabomber and that his family members, just like the real life unabomber, are going to be the ones who have to bring him to account. In real life, his brother turned him in to the law. In this account, his daughter is brought into the dilemma by her stepbrother, who is convinced her father is the unabomber and wants her help bringing him in. Jane, the daughter, is a gorgeous young woman, also brilliant like her father, who alternates between being a stripper in Las Vegas and a dance teacher for children, first in California and then in New Mexico. Her stepbrother is a teacher and her father was a math professor at the University of California but has lived as a hermit for years. The story is told from shifting points of view and the most chilling narrative is the father's as you are inside his mind and able to see the brilliance and madness in there first hand. This is a very moving, very touching book, which takes bends in the road in fiction that are wholly unpredictible and an utter delight. The father's relationship with his late twin brother, killed in the Vietnam War, is just one other nuance to the father's story that incredibly richens it. There is a romantic element for Jane's part of the story, an extremely ironic but satisfying one.

In light of the recent tragedies we have endured, Liza Wieland's novel Bombshell takes on even greater weight and significance as she takes the horrific events of the Uni-Bomber and puts a name and a face to those involved. Like a master painter who unveils more with each stroke, Wieland builds a tremendously suspenseful story which evokes anger, outrage, sympathy and understanding. Told through the eyes of three characters, Bombshell allows us to experience the terrible toll that these events take on individuals as well as society at large. The three different views from the professor, his stripper/wanderer daughter and her step-brother add a personal dimension allowing the reader to linger in the pain and horror of the realization of who is responsible while slowly letting up the shade that allows us, at first, a glimpse and then a full-throttled revelation into the minds of the characters. Is this a story about the abject evil of people who perpetrate such acts or is it a love story in which the professor is performing penance and showing his love in the only way his his skewed perception of reality will allow?

Undoubtedly there were thousands of unique perspectives to World War II, but one of the most interesting views was had by a lone woman who sat behind a desk in a small office in the ancient adobe hacienda at 109 East Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her name was Dorothy McKibbin. During the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer and his gathering of scientists at Los Alamos designed and produced the first atomic bomb. McKibbin took care of just about everything else. A Smith College grad, Dorothy McKibbin had seen some difficult times in her early life, despite coming from a well-to-do Kansas City family. She spent a year as a "lunger" in a sanitarium in the mid 1920s, and she was widowed with a10-month-old son at the age of 33. But McKibbin was a survivor, a woman of determination. She picked up her young child, pulled up roots, and started over in the small, off-the-beaten-path town that had captivated her as she recovered from tuberculosis in 1925-Santa Fe. The move placed her at a crossroads with history, where in 1942 she would become the Gatekeeper to Los Alamos. She arrived in Santa Fe in 1932 with no job nor any prospects of one, but soon she had a bookkeeper's position at a trading company and was building a stunning adobe home that is now one of Santa Fe's historic properties. She made friends with the "cultural mix" of the Santa Fe area, among them photographer Laura Gilpin, architects John Gaw Meem and Katherine Stinson Otero, poets Witter Bynner and Peggy Pond Church, artist Cady Wells, and such legendary locals as Edith Warner and Tilano Montoya. Life was unhurried and unaffected. Then, in 1942, she met Robert Oppenheimer and that all changed. She was offered a new job at that meeting and took it immediately, saying years later, "I never met a person with a magnetism that hit you so fast and so completely as his did." It was an overwhelming job, but, through it, she and Oppenheimer formed an extraordinary friendship. A strong bond developed between them that lasted throughout their lives. In his history of the Manhattan Project, David Hawkins said it best. "Dorothy loved Robert Oppenheimer. He was her special one, and she, his." Pricilla McMillan of Harvard University has summed up this book well in saying, "this is the story of the beautiful, high-spirited woman who helped Robert Oppenheimer create the Los Alamos Laboratory and became its link to the outside world during World War Two. . . . It is exciting to read and just really excellent in every way."

What a mesmorizing account of a woman's life! I could not put the book down and found that Dorothy McKibbin's image of being a "power girl" ignited my own need to move forward and make a difference in life. Steeper has done an incredibly thorough job capturing the details of not only McKibbin's life and life-long contributions, but also the events of the time period. I highly recommend this book and plan to buy more for my "power girl" girlfriends around the world!

What a mesmorizing account of a woman's life! I could not put the book down and found that Dorothy McKibbin's image of being a "power girl" ignited my own need to blast forward and make a difference in life. Steeper has done an incredibly thorough job capturing the details of not only McKibbin's life and life-long contributions, but also the events of the time period. I highly recommend this book and plan to buy more for my "power girl" girlfriends around the world!