When I first saw the book, I was transfixed. I must have spent quite a number of hours going through the pages, standing up, the world dissolving around me. My particular favorite is one picture of Gary Oldman lying in a coffin. It captured him perfectly. I don't know much about photography, but the beauty of his works is that it can be understood and loved by anyone - there is a human association within every shot. For a while I was reluctant to buy it - the price was a bit too much for me, but I kept on returning to the bookstore to see it, taking a half an hour bus ride each time at the other side of the city. I grew restless when I didn't take the ritual visit. Eventually I did get it - and I finally feel complete. He captured perfection.

Not much to pay for a book that is this outstanding. The photographs themselves are really beautifully reproduced, very high quality printing supporting how good the photos themselves are. Fascinating layout also. Great photos. This is one of those books that you keep going back to and still enjoy. You will be happy that you got this book.

Albert Watson's images in this book are quite simply some of the best images of Black & White photography in any book! They are technically perfect and arrestingly beautiful. His images are powerful, moving, creative, and always well composed. Furthermore, the printing in this book is one of the best I've ever seen.

If you appriciate masterful black & white images you would probably be happy with this book even if you had paid 5 times what this costs!

This book is truly a must-have for anyone who appriciates great photography

Uncle Mike,

I'm so happy for you! I have also always wanted to be a writer...and now that someone I'm actually related to is becoming famous, it just makes it seem so much more possible. I know I'm only 13 years old, but its better to get an early start on things, right? I'm still wondering if you are ever going to send me an autographed copy of your book, or if I should just buy one and send it to you in the mail and have you send it back. None of the people at school believe that you are a published author. So, if you do send me a copy, please put something on it like "to my favorite neice in the whole world" or something like that. :) I know I haven't met you very many times, but its kind of hard to not love me...j/k...mom, Kim, says hey and congrats on your book. Please respond to this as soon as possible. sugah@cheerful.com is my e-mail addy...its a new one...

love always, your neice, who also wants to be a writer,

_,.-'``*``'-.,_Steph_,.-'``*``'-.,_

Well Micheal you did it, the book Deadly Presence is very good reading and it will keep you on the edge of your chair.

You will love reading this book, you want put it down until you have finished reading the book. That's how good the book is, so don't be left out buy the Book Deadly Presence now and start reading it... Give it a try, your'll love it too and you want be sorry you did.

Keep up the good work "J. MICHEAL JAMES. THE BOOK WAS GREAT. LOVE THE SUPENCE AND ALL THE ACTION IN THE BOOK GET DEADLY PRESENCE NOW. iT'S A GOOD BUY!

The Arthur J. Michael James of Deadly Presence is a greatwriter and you will enjoy reading his book, it will keep you on theedge of your chair, and you will think your there in the book and see and feel all that you read...Buy Deadly Presence and you will enjoy reading it...it's a great book!! Keep up the good work MICHEAL !!!

Jim Snedden has had a multi-faceted career: as an international business executive, newspaper columnist; college instructor; and a career consultant. He is intensely interested in people-watching and politics. He is presently a resident of Arizona.

Jeremy Dawkins, investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune is out in Los Angeles visiting his friend, Bill, who has just purchased a small newspaper in Palos Verdes. Jeremy is drafted into helping out when an Asian woman and her dog are found murdered in her own driveway. Jeremy starts digging, and is able to help out by using some cross-country communications to find important sources. What he does find out is that the woman who has been murdered is not whom she seems to be. Then one of his sources is murdered, but not before he has given Jeremy the overview of the Chinese community and its underbelly:

"Cocking his head to one side, a serious expression crossed his face. 'My initial reaction is, that it will be difficult and possibly dangerous. The Chinese, the Koreans and the Japanese, all have the equivalent of the Mafia in this country. And just like the Mafia, they have ties to the homelands. They are much more ruthless and efficient than the Mafia, for they operate in a society closed to occidentals. They have never been infiltrated by the FBI, and generate no publicity.'"

Jim Snedden writes a most enjoyable and readable mystery/thriller which opens up the world of the East within the United States. Jeremy Dawkins is the quintessential newspaperman, able to piece together cause and effect with few clues, logic, and lots of contacts. His irreverent personality endears him to the reader, as he tries to wade his way through California-speak, food, and women. He is sort of a Bruce Willis of the newspaper world, and he adapts to the lifestyle of California before he notices that he is indulging in more than simply an unsolved mystery.

Death On The Hill is good, clean fun. Snedden's writing is breezy and entertaining, and it is easy to get into the flow of the story. One can almost see the bachelor pad that Jeremy and Bill inhabit in a sort of Odd Fellows way. Snedden shows us that investigating murders can be fun.

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer

Death on the Hill by James R. Snedden, is a page-turner. This book is fast moving with an abrupt twist in the end. It keeps you on your toes, until the mystery is finally revealed. The central character Jeremy is so real-to-life, - you feel as though you need to know more about him - maybe a sequel is following?
I suggest you purchase this book and take it with you on vacation--in my opinion Death on the Hill is well worth your reading time and investment!
Can't wait to get my hands on Snedden's next book!

James Snedden weaves an intersting tale of suspense in this, his debut novel. I found myself turning pages frantically to continue the story, and the novel held my interest right to the end. With an intriguing plot and excellent characterization, Death on the Hill starts Snedden's career with a bang, and I look forward to reading whatever he comes up with next.

James Koeper's talent for creating characters caught between professional duties and personal ethical demands is powerful. Woven into an intricate but darkly realistic plot driven by conflicting national and personal political agendas, Koeper's readers intimately feel the drama of difficult decisions that need to be made, and seductive compromises that should not, and ultimately cannot, be made.

Mr. Koeper's signature combination of a clear-sighted but kind professional, caught in a complex thriller which is almost, but not quite, totally beyond his control, is conveyed in a clear writing style that any reader will enjoy.

For anyone who enjoys a political thriller with an astonishingly timely plot line, I recommend Deceived heartily. It is certainly a step up from the typical novel of this sort. The characters are genuinely interesting instead of being your average cardboard cutouts, and the author's command of geopolitical realities is impressive. (In this latter respect, it bears comparison with Crichton's Rising Sun.)

Koeper's protagonist is an accountant who discovers billing discrepancies in his audit of a contract between a US engineering firm and the Chinese government -- a contract that is partly subsidized by tax dollars. The resulting chaos gives us not only a tightly-woven and believable plot (complete with an explosive and convincing conclusion) but also a window on the dark side of power politics inside the beltway. And woven unobtrusively through the novel like a dark thread is a broader point: China, the sleeping giant, is awakening, and its aims and purposes do not coincide with ours.

The book is not intended as a critique of the Clinton about the Cox Report or Chinese espionage. But for just that reason it's better than any thinly-veiled allegory could be. This is a case where a smart author saw the direction matters were taking before the headlines broke; it is just fortuitous timing that the book was published in May of 1999.

Grab a copy if you're the literate type.

With this book, Mr. Koeper again displays his special talents for creating multi-dimensional and thoroughly believable characters and intriguing story lines that keep you wanting more. Murder, intrigue and politics (international, national and office) all play a role in this topical thriller with characters worth caring about.

Having now read Mr. Koeper's first two books, I can't wait for the next one.

As a singer and a teacher of singers, I found this book a great resource. It is written in common sense and easily understood terminology, which is very useful. I highly recommend this book as a superb addition to every serious singer's bookshelf.

McKinney is the direct descendant--vocally speaking--of the great pedagog, William Vennard. His technical bent and his ability to communicate in easy-to-understand language has made him indispensable to an increasing number of voice teachers, choral conductors and singers. His systematic approach to the subject, as illustrated in the table of contents, makes the book a resource to keep handy. I use this as the foundation for teaching vocal pedagogy to college music-voice majors. If you are looking for fundamental and thorough knowledge of singing; how to spot and correct vocal faults, this is the resource to have.

As a voice teacher I find myself frequently turning to McKinney's wise guidance. This is a great resource for teachers and students alike and avoids using obscure pedagogical terms that might confuse the reader. McKinney gives excellent overviews of the all aspects of the singing voice such as posture, breathing, phonation, registration, voice classification, resonation, articulation, the speaking voice, and coordination. He also includes useful diagrams of the voice mechanism to provide a an even more concrete idea of exactly how the voice works. It is an indispensible tool I would be lost without.

I first read this book in the mid 80's, and it made me a Blaylock fan for life. I had never read anything like it, and can count on my fingers the books of this style I have read since (why couldn't Blaylock be a little more prolific?). Apparently, this book was completely misunderstood by his Balumnia (i.e. Elfin ship, etc.) publisher (Del Ray) forcing him to turn to other houses to get it published. I am grateful he was so persistent.

A young boy with gills and webbed fingers builds a digging machine to travel to the center of the earth. The machine is much like the many complex devices constructed by preteen inventors who are disapointed that the laws of physics didn't bend to their wills. But this boy is different...

The only copy of this book that I've stumbled across is the one I own ... And I've read it 4 times in as many years!

Not only, as the other reviewers here describe, is The Digging Leviathan a rollicking, post-mystical romp through a Los Angeles of indeterminate timeframe, it is also an eloquent and beautifully rendered story. Blaylock's great power as a writer, in addition to the fantastic situations he has dreamed up in this novel (his best, in my opinion, and I've read them all now!), comes from his grace as a stylist of prose. There are imagistic moments in this book on the level of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez that will bring tears to your eyes.

As well, his characters, although uniformly eccentric, are lifelike & believable, sympathetic & empathetic in their relationships with each other. The under-emphasized relationship between young Jim, the book's protagonist, and his purportedly crazy father is subtle and wonderful. This novel reinvigorated my taste for fantasy after a lapse of many years ... Get it! Read it!

James P Blaylock's 'Digging Leviathan' is a superb book, one of the best I've ever read in my life, a sometimes frenzied, sometimes somber race between mad scientists, good (William Hastings and young Giles Peach) and evil (the abominable Hilario Frosticos). Mr. Blaylock loves to constantly blur the lines--Is Hastings really crazy? Do the machines work by science or by Peach's will? And how did those dog droppings appear in the yard?) Most of Mr Blaylock's books have a similar theme; a good-hearted anyman (William Hastings, Walt Stebbins), usually with the help of family or friends (Blake Society, Trigimestus Club) must confront and defeat vile evil (Frosticos, Ignacio Narbondo) on the edges of a society that never knows what it was saved from. In DigLev, Hastings must confront his own fears and flaws in order to rescue the innocent Peach, stop Frosticos, and save us all from catastrophe. If you can find this book, read it.

I think you should read The Cut-Ups by James Marshall because it's a good book for me and it's funny, too. I like the book a lot. When they're being so funny because of that girl in the car, that's the best part of all for me. I am a 2nd grader.

I think you should read The Cut-Ups by James Marshall because when Mary Frances puts them in Mr. Spurgle's yard and Mr. Spurgle gets mad at them and they try to run away, but Mr. Spurgle's battery died down so they got away. I am in 2nd grade.

because they are really funny and silly. They do silly things. My favorite part of the book was when Mr. Spurgle was the principal again. I am a 2nd grader.

DEATH WIND was a great find thanks to Amazon.com once again!
After this novel, I will be gathering up all of Mr. Smith's other works in FORCE RECON series as well as his other horror-type genre novels.
Being a former marine, I was intrigued and very pleased to see this series. It was more than I bargained for and was a very pleasant surprise.

This book was an exceptionaly good book. I rated it five but would go higher. As with other books I have read this one was hard for me to put down. I lost many an hour of sleep with this book. James put you right there with the patrol,from beginning to end.

Roadrunner 6 Out

To write a book with the kind of action, conflict, dialogue and flow found in Death Wind is obviously a rare ability. You barely know that the clock is ticking as you keep reading, keep reading and keep reading until you end up with the kind of finish that makes you wish the next Force Recon book was on the shelves right now. Smith clearly knows a lot about the military, but he knows even more about how to tell a story. Great reading, great writing, great book.

I know I've run across a good book - when it makes me cry.

This is an excellent account of the Navy's Pacific war from inception to finish - recounted by an ordinary seaman who was in the middle of it - from Pearl Harbor to the Doolittle raid, to Chennault's Flying Tigers, through all the major sea battles, and on to the sudden unexpected end.

I cried silently when I read of that 18-year old boy from Las Vegas, New Mexico, 9000 miles from home in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, so far from home nothing survived a mail trip in its original form. Letters from home written over a period of several weeks would arrive all in one bundle, wrinkled, stained, dirty - how many large and small ships and airplanes did it take to get them there into a war zone where no one was supposed to know where they were? What did it take for military and civilian mail service to find that ship and deliver their precious cargo? News from home was welcome, but distant - removed - late. And suddenly, without warning 5-watt station KFUN in Las Vegas, New Mexico homes in on a little radio set in a crowded living compartment for crew, and for the brief few moments it takes the radio waves to perform their unpredictable bounce off the stratospheric layers of the earth, "home" is instantly right there - in the middle of the Pacific. What a shock! What an unbelievably wonderful moment, when all that was lost is suddenly right there - right now! I guess it's my own remembered moments of home being so far back in time and space, I wasn't really sure it ever existed. And then a busted up letter arrives and speaks that it is still all true. Maybe it was that reminder in the book that made me cry - the first time.

Again, in the middle of the battle of Midway - so eloquently described I could feel the heat, and the noise and the fear and the marvel at the bravery of men dedicated to their individual duties, everything happening at once, attacks from above, behind, below - no one could comprehend it in its entirety. How can anything live through all that? I cried again. I was never there, but now have at least an inkling of what it would have been like.
It's a damn good book. I'd say you'll never forget what you read, especially since there is information here you won't find anywhere else. I am the author of another book on the Pacific war, FROM HERE TO THERE.

I just finished this book. I am no literary critic, nor does my training in writing go beyond English 1A, however I loved this memoir. If it has not been published in hard covers and advertised widely, that is most unfortunate.

DESERT SAILOR puts a very human face on life in the Navy during WWII. It is also an invaluable chronicle of the day to day life of a sailor at the time. As a teenager, I followed avidly every campaign in the Pacific. My bedroom wall was plastered with "war maps" of the Pacific campaign that were published regularly in the daily San Francisco Examiner. And I have read many books since, so I was at least somewhat familiar with every campaign this account describes so well.

I have probably read at least two dozen books on the Pacific campaign, including Toland, which I consider among the finest. But none did the job as well as Jim Fitch did, of making it so personal. Having an older brother and older friends in the Navy at the time, so much of what I found here sounded very familiar.

The author comes across as a pretty regular guy, right down to the drinking and carousing on leave. I absolutely loved his "letter to Radio Tokyo," and his description of the officer with sadly no sense of humor. I am still laughing about the streetcar incident in San Francisco The volume describes many warm, poignant moments that virtually every serviceman must have experienced. I was most delighted in the manner in which the narrator shaped up the commander of the troop transport on his return home. The bureaucratic vicissitudes and the screwups were described with good humor and perspective.

This sailor obviously went through hell when Northampton was sunk but I did not detect one iota of self-pity, either for the pain and suffering or for discomforts which would bring nothing but whines from many of today's young people.

I am most thrilled to have been able to read this saga, aptly titled Desert Sailor, and have recommended it highly to several friends.

DESERT SAILOR By James W. Fitch
Reviewed By Larry W. Nees rampartz@sonic.net

This fascinating book begins in the summer of 1941, just before young Jim Fitch, from small town New Mexico! enlisted in the US Navy with his older brother.

The reader is moved easily through the travails of a raw recruit, who always looked to big brother for answers. But, when the two separated the author takes us on a fast rite of passage from carefree young teen, to green Navy boot, and, finally, to salty sailor of the seven seas.

As a crewmember of heavy cruiser, USS Northampton, part of the 1941 so-called "Pineapple Fleet," there is a carefree Hawaiian summer followed by liberty in the land Down Under, where Aussie folks broaden small town New Mexico horizons.

A stroke of fate, mishap in rough seas, prevented the young sailor's ship from being tied up in Pearl Harbor on December 7. The day after the Japanese sneak attack USS Northampton eased into the burning harbor. Fitch's vivid descriptions of the devastation and destruction rained on the US Fleet, are as lucid and intense as any book written on that subject since it happened almost 62 years ago.

His first impression: "Pearl Harbor was wrapped in ungodly quiet. ...

I remember hearing only the burbling underwater exhausts of

many small craft as they worked at picking up dead sailors."

Then his poignant account: "Arizona* tall tripod foremast was pitched forward at a crazy angle, and the boxy foretop dangled high above the drowned void which was left where her forward magazines exploded."

The next day USS Northampton went back to sea with its young crew certain they were sailing into the jaws of death as a powerful Japanese force awaited them.

Fitch recalls watching Jimmy Doolittle's raiders take off to bomb Tokyo in April 1942, as Northampton escorted their aircraft carrier, USS Hornet. He takes the reader on board ship in late 1942 during the terrifying night a Japanese destroyer torpedoed Northampton in the Battle of Tassaforanga. After abandoning the mortally wounded ship, the badly burned young sailor fought for this life throughout the night' surrounded by fiery seas, until being picked up and rescued many hours later.

After a period of rehabilitation he returned to sea duty on various naval vessels, the last a destroyer on terrifying picket duty around Okinawa. Its purpose was to pick off Japanese kamikaze planes or take the hit before they reached larger targets.

This book is a must read for not only naval historians but anyone interested in the trials and tribulations of our young men during those darks and uncertain days of World War II. Young people today could benefit and learn about everyday sacrifices of members of the Greatest Generation, as well as events of that time which have been abandoned in many school history programs today.

DESERT SAILOR is one of those fascinating "can't-put-it-down" books. The pages seem to have wings and fly by. It gets a two-thumbs up from this comer and likewise from many who have read it.

The concept of differential diagnosis in dermatology is a pretty tough one.This CD Rom atlas handles this with great finesse.The authors bring out the points of differentiation between various diseases in their own style .The Discussions cover almost all the major diseases that a physician sees in his practice and also some uncommon ones. The clinical pictures are good , but i was dissappointed with the brief discussions regarding therapy , but then again one must remember this is a book on differential diagnosis and not therapy.

I have been using this for the past one year , found it to be good in diagnosing common conditions.Definitely is a big help in my practice.

The CD ROM of the ATLAS OF DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS in DERMATOLOGY is worth the buy , with more than a thousand pictures along with facilities to zoom and shrink the pictures and a user friendly software through which one can navigate quickly between topics , pictures and the chapter guide(a sort of index for each chapter).The pictures are great , besides common diseases , photos of rare disorders are seen at the end of each chapter. Worth owning,and adding it in your collection.