I received "The Buckley-Class Destroyer Escorts" as a gift and I consider it priceless. Having commissioned and served as a Gunners Mate on the USS Sims DE 154 (ESCORT DIV.6) until she was converted into the APD 50, I am familiar with some of the action in the Atlantic and Eastern Areas. Being able to follow the history of the Division, after I was reassigned, was a treat. Some of the inserts, the experiences of former crew members, struck pretty close to home. They well may have been in the bunk next to mine. The photographs were great. This book contains the only photo that I have seen of the "SIMS" underway. Compiling all of the information in this book, so long after the fact, is almost unbelievable. It is, in many respects, a record of a piece of my life. Any Sailor that served on one of "The Little Wolves" should own a copy of this book.

I recommend this marvellous book to all naval enthusiasts because they can easily see all of the Buckley class on it. Especially I am very glad to see all of the Captain class. I couldn't find which ship of the Royal Navy had 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns on X position before I purchased this masterpiece.

Navy men always did there job with out asking if our ship was Special.Now that I have read Bruces book, I know now that the DE sailor was on one of the greatest fighting ships in the Navy. the history of these ships as written in this book "The Buckley Class Destroyer Escorts". The people that made the history will be the proud ones.

This is one of the backbones of my cookbook collection. We do food in the south, as they say. This is the always dependable cookbook. The cookbook for never fail to please goodies for family and friends for any occasion. I adore it. Virginia Hospitality says it in the name and can be depended upon to provide just that.

I collect cookbooks, and this is one I use frequently. The dishes are delicious, elegant, and easy to prepare. Some of my most frequently requested recipes are from this book. Also makes a great gift!

an abosulte must have ! Traditional, yet with a trace of fantas

I got this book because I love the show 7th Heaven. As I was reading the book I remembered watching this episode on TV a few years ago, but I only saw the first half cuz the last half was to be continued and I never saw it. I think that this book was great and I read it often. Lucy is on student court and has to judge cases of kids who have done bad stuff. Mary is mad because the coach locks the basketball team out of the gym because their grades are slipping. Simon gave the finger at school and gets suspended. Ruthie thinks "honking"(making a farting noise under your armpit) will make her like a guy and gets Matt and Simon mad at her. Mary and her friends trash the gym and almost have to go to jail, and Matt wants to move back home because of everything that is going on. I think this book is an excellent book to read and is really a whole lot like the show. It has a great ending too!!

Mary is mad beacase she cant play basketball anymore beacase of her school grades and then Mary crashes the school gym and almost gos to jail. Lucy is in the school court and has to deal with cases every day and saves her sister. Matt wants to move back home beacase he missed his family. Silmon is doing the finger with his friends and Little Ruthie is becomeing a tomboy while naging at her big brother.

I chose to read this book because I love 7th Heaven. I watch it on TV. every Monday night. I wanted to find out what this book was about. For example: if it was based on an episode from 7th Heaven or just a book about them. I didn't really know what to think about how it was going to be. After reading the book I had remembered the episode. I thought it was written the way it was on TV. It turned out very well. I wasn't really what I expected. I was hoping that it would not be like any of the other episodes but it was. I don't feel the same about this book, because I thought it would be more interesting than it was. I think the only reason it wasn't was because I knew what was going to happen because I saw it on TV.
I would describe this book as funny in some parts, exciting, and easy to get into. This book is considered to be fiction. The author is Amanda Christie. The main characters are Mary, Lucy, Simon, Ruthie, Samuel, David, Matt, John, Shana, Eric, and Annie. The setting took place in Glenoak, California at the Camden house, Matt's apartment, and at school. The story is about Mary getting in trouble all the time. Her grades slip, basketball season is ruined, she lost her scholarship, she trashed the gym, and for anything else you can think of. Matt decided to move back home to help, but soon discovered they didn't need anymore help.
I liked this book because I like 7th Heaven! It's a very interesting and an exciting TV. show. The only reason I didn't like this book was because everything that happened I knew what was coming. It's not fun to read a book like that. Another reason I liked this book was because I like the characters. Lucy is my favorite. Mary was pretty cool until she trashed the school gym!
In conclusion, I'm going to recommend you read this book because it's very exciting! Most-likely teenagers would enjoy Secrets the most. If you have read it and don't like it maybe you should try reading it one more time to make sure of your decision. From my opinion between a one through a five I would choose a five. Five is being the best! It was a great book!

I am in aw after reading this novel. It was soooo good I counted the pages down as I neared the end fearing that it would all be over soon. I'm so glad that there's a sequel because I do not want to let Jaylin go. His character is the most addictive character I ever read and fiction or not, he was certainly real to me. Many women will dislike him, but I didn't blame him for anything he did. After all, we all make choices and if it's to be with a man like him, so be it. I definitely understood how the sistas got so wrapped up because he was not only wealthy but came with a package of good looks, charm, a sexy body, and attitude. Felica was a serious drama queen. I couldn't believe how scantless she was but with a man like Jaylin, who could blame her. Nokea was my girl. I loved her character because I believe most women are going to relate to her like I did. Being in love with someone for years, sometimes it's hard to let go. Scorpio, she was cool too. I hope in the sequel her seductiveness does not keep him like it did in this book. As for Stephon, who was fine as fine can get, I was disappointed how he backstabbed his cousin. I'm also looking for Jaylin to get revenge on him as well. Wrapping this up, Hampton really out did herself. I'm looking forward to reading her other novels because her style seems to be quite different from the others. The reality of them makes you feel as if you're in the movies.

Looking for a good book to read in 2003? Two's Enough Three's A Crowd is THE one. This book was so spectacular to read that I couldn't even think of putting it down. The characters were all so real and Jaylin just took my breath away. Having his cake and eating it too, like most people would love to do, I seriously found a soft spot for him in my heart. I appreciated his honesty and he always gave women the choice of wanting to be with a man like him. As for the women, Felicia was wild, but she brought about soooo much drama that it was quite funny reading her character. Nokea, a part of me liked her but when she started making stupid mistakes I could have just ripped through the pages and snactched her out. Scorpio was definitely a charmer, but I think Jaylin saw through her from the beginning. Thank God for Mackenzie. I was so glad he found her. Their bond brought tears to my eyes. Stephon, however, was truly a cruel, jealous,and devious person. With family like him, who needs enemies? I'm hoping to see Jaylin get back at him in the sequel and I truly hope he finds the woman of his dreams. For this novel being Hampton's first self-published novel, she's an author waiting to be discovered. Never would I imagine a first time author kicking it down like she did. You are definitely on your way to becoming one of the best!!

By far, the best. I can't believe my addiction to this book. Jaylin is, without a doubt, the man. He kept me hanging on to the edge of my seat waiting to see what was going to happen next. I'm dying to read the sequel!! The ending left me with my mouth wide open. This story is definitely big screen material. If not, it would be perfect as a series. Juicy, juicy, juicy. This one is going to be hard to top!

This was the first jazz biography I have read. Hawes does a great job of portraying the terrible effects of heroin addiction. I knew some jazz musicians were busted for heroin use in his time. But I didn't understand how rampant heroin use was in the industry. This book gives great insight into the life of a wonderfully talented jazz pianist. But more importantly, it gives insight into the tumultuous life of a drug addict. Initially, the piano seems to be Hawes' only love. But then there is the realization that heroin is his real love. It is his only motivation to even play the piano.

I love this book. Remember, back then when you played this music, it wasn't exactly a sweet world for the musicians (Black ones). I'm glad he let everyone know how hard it was out there. Drugs took this Bad Boy out the game and the world passed him by. Musicians like Brother Hawes, will never be acknowledged for their great playing in the U.S.A.

If there was a dumb remark in this book, I didn't see it. Again, think back to the times he was living in. He talked about Jimmy Rushing and the way he thought about things. Jimmy Rushing came out of a different era, yet Some of his thoughts were not far behind. When he described Black people, some were light skninned, some were black... The book is not dated, it's just good.

I enjoyed reading this book very much.

It is first of all Hampton Hawes biography of his life as a jazz musician. It tellls us of his way from being a little boy attending his father's church on Sundays to a highly acclaimed jazz pianist, his downfall because of his heroin addiction, his 10-year jail sentence (which was reduced to six after Hawes had written to John Kennedy!), his way back up on the European market, his love relationship with Jackie, and his new found love after separating from Jackie after almost two decades. The very last sentence of the book speaks about his ex-wife Jackie - and it is very touching and shows that Hawes indeed must have been a nice man.

There is only one really dumb remark in the book that I felt was disgusting. (Find it for yourself... ;-))

Hawes repeatedly talks about Black issues. I personally feel that those statements are very intelligent, and can therefore recommend this book not only to those of you interested in jazz, but also to anyone into Black issues.

I got Velma's book from our town library. I read it right through. I made one of the recipes. I'm buying the book today, because I want to have it with me. I think it may make me a better man. My town is much like Leeway. Our people are like Velma's neighbors. Such characters! I could stand on our Main Street and point to Doris, and Sissy, and Howard, and Shellye and even Zeke. The lives in my town work just like the lives in Leeway. Leeway is not a special town. It's just that all of us are like the people of Leeway. Leeway is just a neighborhood with a lot of unpopulated space around it. We are all human beings and we all have a self. That self is so important to us, and so strong, that it blinds us, sometimes. Our self makes it hard for us to recognize how others feel - much less understand them - even when we love them very much. In this book, Velma Brendle learns that God knows that this to be true. He teaches her how to live through it. There is a lot of joy in this book, and a lot of sorrow. Velma makes many people happy and healthy with her wonderful cooking. She also hurts some people because she can't get past her own grief. But it is a very hopeful book. The insights of the "human condition" are worth the book's price. The mystery in Velma's soul makes it intriguing and powerful. The recipes make it a great bargain. Readers like me, who love Garrison Keillor and Jan Karon and John Steinbeck will want to read and own this book. I hope Ms. Wright gives us another one soon.

At last . . . Christian fiction that's WORTH reading! Wright's characters have dimension, and they ALL ring true. I feel I've known the residents of Leeway all my life! Could not put this book down.

If you liked this one, you should also read "Grace at Bender Springs" by this author.

I'll start by confessing that I read this book because I was curious to see if Broadman & Holman would put out a quality piece of fiction (of course, my view of "quality" may not correspond to any objective reality). They did. Wright's book quickly drew me into the lives of her characters, despite the fact that they led completely commonplace lives. In fact, that seems to be the point of the book--that things of ultimate importance are found in the obscure and ordinary: small towns, small interactions, small choices. I'm already reading Wright's earlier novel "Grace at Bender Springs" and look forward to seeing more from this author.

Summer is upon us and it is the time of year I traditionally put all serious reading on the shelf and turn to trash. I picked up The Hampton Affair this week and settled down for an afternoon of murder and mishap. I ended up with a wicked sunburn - couldn't put it down. This intricate thriller twists and turns around three main charcters: a vain and straying voyueristic husband of an ultra rich woman, a bisexual blue collar teenage manipulator, and the local detective. It takes the usual "haves vs have nots" and kicks it up a closer to a Hitchcockian notch. In a nutshell, start with a secret affair, a murder, and how it all ties in with three diverse families, and finally who done it. Read it! Wear sunscreen.

I am a big Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen fan and thought Vincent Lardo's Hampton Affair to be along similar lines. The pace was fast, the plot was filled with twists and turns, the writing was smart and the characters were all well-fleshed out. I highly recommend this book for anytime - leisure reading at home, on a plane, at the beach, etc.

THE HAMPTON AFFAIR is a tightly crafted and quickly paced murder story which holds its suspense to--and even past--its last page. Told from the points of view of three characters, author Vincent Lardo describes the rhythms of East Hampton, the town in which he and I both live. His use of the characters' individual voices is excellent, and the dialogue often is funny as well as perceptive. The primary narrator, Michael Reo, is sort of a modern-day Nick Caraway. Along the way, Mr. Lardo reveals certain basic truths, which he notes with the keen eye of an observer. East Hampton, indeed, is a peculiar little town, probably with more billionaires per square mile than anywhere but Kuwait. Yet the haves and the have-nots of East Hampton bang up against each other much like bumper cars, except with amazingly few sparks. Mr. Lardo gets it: the fashions, the parties, the sex, the envy, the affectations and pretensions, all of those facts of life in The Hamptons. And he uses these details with his own elegant style, to construct a page-turner that will keep readers absorbed until the final sentence.

Your Price is much too high!

A magnificent work of art transports you this land of beauty and charm. it leaves just enough for your imagination to interpet.

I would love to buy this book but the price prevents me from doing so...

I had the pleasant opportunity to meet with this fine author during his book signing. Several of my friends and family have passed a copy of "Remembering Father Flye" and they all read it cover to cover without putting it down. A unanimous response that it was a story worth telling.

Father James Harold Flye is best known as the mentor of Pulitzer Prizewinning author James Agee. William Hampton's new biography of the eccentric, independent, and unforgettable priest should give Father Flye his own--well-deserved--billing.

Father Flye, born in 1884, lived a a full century--more than twice as long as Agee--with uncommon relish. It's clear from the recollections that Hampton has gathered that Flye had a lasting effect on everyone who met him, from the mountain boys he taught to the New Yorker writers who visited him at his cluttered apartment in Greenwich Village.

And now, when our country is presented with unprecedented challenges, the story of Father Flye-who knew history, loved humanity, and endured with strength-is especially relevant.

Father Flye's story is not without heartbreak and loss. It's about life, after all. But a remarkable and exuberant life. The stories collected in this book are mostly transcribed radio interviews and letters. They focus on the particular, and that's what makes them so charming.

Father Flye was married at age 30 to Grace Houghton, a quirky portrait artist 10 years his senior. His first parish assignment was in Milledgeville, Georgia. After that small disaster, he took a temporary job at St. Andrew's School on the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. The school was founded by monks of the Order of the Holy Cross to teach local mountain boys who came from extremely primitive circumstances. Father Flye, a Yalie, and Grace, who had had a studio in Italy, stayed at St. Andrew's for 36 years.

The Flyes had no children, but the St. Andrew's students were their boys. Grace painted their portraits and sewed their clothing. Father Flye gave them elocution lessons. He taught them history. He punished them for trying to flush a frog down the toilet by making them stand outside and recite poetry. He gave them self-respect, respect for learning and life, and futures. "Piffle," they called him. His antics left them wide-eyed. His love filled their hearts. His poetry settled in their minds. He corresponded with them for decades after they left St. Andrew's.

Readers looking for intriguing history, biography or "something inspirational" will love Father Flye and his quirky wife, Grace. Grace was "no bigger than a bar of soap after a hard day's wash." A victim of Addison's disease, she became more reclusive with age. Father Flye was a vegetarian. Grace, anemic, ate a little meat. She saved tea bags to shred to make nests for the mice at her "Noah's Ark." She moved her broom to different locations on the porch as a signal to her neighbors that she was fine, still alive. She is listed by the Smithsonian as one of America's finest portraitists.

In a recent memoir published in American Places, historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown writes affectionately that the Flyes were unquestioned intellectuals. He describes them entering the chapel in their black robes, looking like nothing so much as "a pair of underfed crows."

The book is "Mr. Holland's Opus," "Music of the Heart," "Dead Poets' Society," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," the Mitford books, and a costume drama. Its two eccentric protagonists will warm the hearts of readers as the Flyes warmed the hearts of those they befriended, from Appalachia to Greenwich Village.

Mr. Hampton, a retired radio announcer, was one of the lost boys that Father Flye saved.

And through this book, Mr. Hampton has saved Father Flye for us.

I have just finished reading "Remembering Father Flye" and I wanted to acknowledge how deeply moved and impresed I am with Bill Hampton's extraordinary work of oral reminiscenes that are fused so well together in the telling of the journey of such a remarkable human being as Father Flye who was consumed by history in all its elements as well as the beauty of life itself.

Hampton has magnificently woven a rich mosaic diffused with both light and darkness of the life of a man whose pilgrimage as an educator of both young and old minds from, "the Mountain" of Sewanee to the streets of the City of New York, was always filled with enriching the lives of those he met on his way with great compassion and love.

In this expansive work of love, in which the meticulousness of historic detail is in itself a wealth of knowledge, Bill Hamptom has shared not only an unusual story but years of wisdom and grace that are not often found in an ordinary life.

Rivals is based on a great episode of 7th Heaven, but the book goes into more detail than the show. I also recommend Mary's Story and Matt's Story!

I found this book very interesting. I watch the Tv series every day, it is my most fave show. The books are great because they are the same as the show and keep me reading. I recomend this book to everyone 10 and over. One thing to say BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!!

As a loyal watcher of the show 7th Heaven and a dedicated Christian; I only wish their were more books like this out there for young readers. The show 7th Heaven has always been about a real family dealing with real issues in the real world; this book which is part of the 7th Heaven Series of books based on the popular WB show shows all of the values and expands on many of the same situations as the show does. In this particular book Mary and Lucy Camden show how being "Sibling Rivals" who are constantly bickering can have an affect on the entire family, and on themselves. Again I say if only there were more series like this one out there, our world would be a better place.