Author Dave D'Antonio has written an interesting book on his travels visiting cemeteries across the country and attending baseball games on all levels while traveling in his car "Nellie." I, too, find it interesting visiting cemeteries and locating graves of the famous and infamous. Dave also visited with people who could provide him with information on the individual he was looking for. It was a tiring trip for this middle school history teacher to take on his own, but if you would like a quick read on an offbeat subject on baseball, this book will hold your interest. I enjoyed the book, but four stars, not five.

I am not a baseball fan. My tenure in Little League was spent bird watching, and the only flies I caught were the ones buzzing around my gaping mouth as I scanned the skies for scissor tail flycatchers.

I am a fan of the tales Dave D'Antonio spins out as he recounts his travels around the country hunting down the final rest stops of the Greats of Baseball. The characters that Dave met along his circuitous route, the converstations with true blue fans, and the personal insights accrued on his mission kept me up past my bed time savoring each quirky experience.

If you are a baseball fan, you will appreciate D'Antonio's passion for the national pastime as it was before players became millionaires, and the season depended on owner/player labor negotiations. The only free agent in this delightful book is Dave as he pushes his Geo Metro through the thousands of miles traveled to gather stories for his tribute.This is a book that is destined to be passed along from fan to fan, but I'd suggest keeping a copy for yourself to read the next time you get tired of the corporate manipulations of America's favorite pastime.

The overwhelming majority of baseball books run pretty much to form. Aside from statistical tomes, Roger Angell colletions and a few valuable historical works, the games's non-fiction oeuvre is confined to dreary reminiscences by aging sports writers and broadcasters and a spate of yawn-inducing, blatantly self-serving, as-told-to player autobiographies. But two new books, both published by Diamond Communications, Inc. represent happy departures from the norm. What is particularly refreshing about Dave D'Antonio's Invincible Summer is that the author sets out on a quest only peripherally connected with baseball. D'Antonio, a middle school history teacher recovering from a succession of personal setbacks, tries to find himself. Dave D'Antonio, of San Leandro, Calif., is certainly no cosmopolite. In his curiously affecting little book, Invincibe Summer, he comes across as a vulnerable naif. A fiercely loyal fan, he suffered mightily during the 1994 baseball strike. This disastrous event, coupled with "the lost of...half my life savings" in an investment scam, "a pair of painful romantic relationships" and the unexpected divorce of his parents, persuaded him to hit the road at age 34, in the sprint of 1995. But not without a purpose, for D'Antonio set out to visit the gravesites of as many Hall of Fame ballplayers as he could find. "Cemeteries have always interested me," he explains. "I felt their peace and silence." Besides, by find the past he would be "forgetting the present." D'Antonio's odyssey led him through 43 states and 25,873 miles in five months. Most of the time he slept in his car, Nellie, and bathed in hotel pools. Along the way he stood reverently before the graves of close to 100 Hall of Famers. D'Antonio faithfully, if briefly recounts the careers and personalities of the departed immortals he visited, but what makes this book interesting is the author's own decidedly odd adventures. On his unmerry way he became involved in an angry traffic dispute with a mute, fell desperately in love with a woman he later discovered was a lesbian and in a pique over past racism, urinated on the steps of the capitol building in Montgomery, Ala. It's an intriguing ride, marred only by touches of sophmoric philosophizing and the author's addiction to preposterous similes and analogies, the most egregious of which is his description of Jesus Christ as having "more saves than Lee Smith, Rollie Finger and Hoyt Wilhelm put together." D'Antonio may not exactly have banished his own "demons," as he calls them, but at the graves of the great his love for the game was restored, and he convinced himself that, unlike those he visited, he would "rise again".

Josefina Saves the Day is about a girl age 10. She meets a american named Peter O'Toole, a scout for the wagon trail. Papa and Josefina trust Peter with their trades. Will Josefina get her trade? Will she and Francisa, and Clara, and Papa get what they want? To find out more read this book.

This is another one of the American Girls series about Josefina Montoya, a ten-year-old girl living in the New Mexico of 1824 (actually January of 1825). In this book, Josefina and her family travel to her grandfather's rancho to await the arrival of the wagon train from the United States. She meets her first American, Patrick O'Toole, a handsome scout for the wagon train. The family wants to trade blankets and mules with the Americans, but is this handsome young man trustworthy?

The final chapter is in an interesting and informative look at outdoor life in New Mexico in 1824. Jean-Paul Tibbles' illustrations, warm and filled with emotion, add a great deal to the story, and are a welcome addition.

My daughter and I both liked this book. The story has its scary parts, but it also has a nice lesson, and I enjoy the frank look at life then and there. This is another excellent book, a worthwhile addition to your library.

Ten year old Josefina Montoya, her father, and two of her sisters are staying with Josefina's grandfather and grandmother in Sante Fe while they await the arrival of an American wagon train. Josefina and her sisters trust a young American trader with a deal. But then, before he pays them, he leaves town. Has he cheated them? Josefina and her sisters must go on a daring late night adventure to find out.

I liked Maeve Binchy before, but I am even more of a fan after buying this set. Unfortunately because I am such a busy person this book took me just over a year to finish! But I loved every page and would definitely give it a re-read.
The three novels in this book are all distinctly different and, in my view, each deserve their own little mini-review:
THE LILAC BUS - Since I read this a year ago, the finer details are lost on me. But I did like how this novel focuses on so many characters and yet you get to feel like you know each one. And I loved how each character viewed each scene differently. You read one chapter and you see one person's point of view, and then you read the next and you get completely different thoughts on the situation. Only Ms. Binchy could keep tabs on so many characters so skillfully. And all I can say about DUBLIN FOUR is that I had to flip through it a little to remember what it was even about, so obviously it's not as stellar as its counterpart. 4 stars total.
FIREFLY SUMMER - A great book all around. It's easily the longest story of the three (it's almost 500 pages, compared to 200 for The Lilac Bus and 150 for Silver Wedding) but once you get going, you don't even notice the book's length. The characters are so genuine, and you are upset to see them go at the end. The main plot is very thick, and yet you enjoy reading all the little sub-plots that go along with it. I actually cried reading some parts of this book! The book ends as you hope it will but not in the manner that you expect! So will Patrick's hotel succeed? You'll just have to read it and find out! 5 stars.
SILVER WEDDING - is the freshest in my mind because I just finished it. It is similar to The Lilac Bus in that it devotes each chapter to a character. But while The Lilac Bus follows the characters through the same moments of time, each chapter in Silver Wedding is a distinct moment. For instance, when you read about Anna (chapter 1) it is months before the anniversary, but when you read about Deirdre (chapter 8), it's a few weeks before. The more you read, the more you find out about the wedding itself and the people involved. However, I found that although there were plenty of sub-plots to keep the story going, the main plot was not very well developed or interesting (ok, so they're having a party, and Deirdre's the only one who's truly excited... you almost get that from page one, why keep going?). And the characters themselves aren't as "3-dimensional" as they are in Ms. Binchy's other stories. I really expected more, but it still wasn't a waste of time. 3 stars.

I have been a fan of Binchy after having been introduced to her books 2 years ago by my Grandaughter. "Lilac Bus" at first seemed disjointed and confusing but as I got into the book it became more and more interesting. I liked the fact that it was a group of short stories that you could read put down and then pick up again later without having to look back to refresh your memory. When you realize that this is a story of a group who each week-end return to their hometown and the involvement in their lives and how it relates to the others the story grabs
your interest and holds it to the end. "Firefly Summer" is an exceptional story and very suspensful. I had trouble putting the book down and found myself reading into the wee hours of the morning. The story intrigues to the point you want it to end so you can find out what happens and at the same time you feel you do not want it to end but want it to go on forever. I felt it compared to her "Tara Road." After finishing the story I was still living in the setting for the next 24 hours. "Silver Wedding" the third story in this group did not engage my interest as much until I was well into but in the end it also was well worth the read. I highly recommend this book whether you have ever read Binchy before or not read these. I am now purchasing this series in audio book form for my Grandaughter who is a student in Ireland and has been very ill and must rest and recover her strength. I feel these stories will provide her with entertainment and relaxation during this time. I have yet to read a Binchy book I did not like. I have now read 5 of her books.

Maeve brings her characters to life in every single one of her stories - so much so that when the story has ended, you are almost angry that there isn't more to read. I felt like I knew the people she was writing about - and that the friendships needed to keep developing, but the last page was turned, and it was over. Maeve - I will read every single book you have written, and I'm sure I will love them all. (And this from a mostly non-fiction reader). Bravo.

As usual, Ms. Roberts deals with a contemporary issue while we entertain ourselves. The protagonist Ms. Amanda Pepper teaches more than English and we become her rapt students. The characters are realistic and draw us into this multi-layered tale of the mystery of humanity. Please keep writing Amanda Pepper mysteries!!!

Very solid mystery. While this book is a step below other Amanda Pepper books such as, "With Friends Like These", "The Bluest Blood", or "Caught Dead in Philadelphia", it is miles above "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" and "I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia".

A young Vietnames boy is killed in a drive-by shooting in IN THE DEAD OF SUMMER. Then April Tuong is kidnapped outside a Chinatown massage parlor late one night. Amanda is curious and she starts asking questions beginning with students in her classroom.

The good news for fans of Amanda Pepper is that C.K. MacKenzie, Sasha Berg and Macavity the cat are still very much alive at the end of the book.

First I'd like to tell you who Kit Summers is if you don't know, that right there might make you want to buy the book! I've had some contact with this guy over email. He's like really nice and has alot of motivation! He has a webpage I forget what it is, but you can look it up. He used to juggle and was getting into the extremes of juggling like 7 clubs! Then I believe he was hit buy an automobile. He was I do know in a coma like for a few years. Then he got out of the coma, relearned how to juggle. Now he teaches a juggling workshop called Juggling With Finesse also. It's a really neat workshop teaching you how juggling can benefit in so many areas and the truth it can! But, not only that, man is it addictive! It can benefit musicians, pianists get more grace at the piano, it helps improve-hand-eye coordinaton, motor vascular skills etc. If a football player learned how to juggle three footballs don't you think he would get better at catching during the big NFL game? Not only that it keeps kids out of trouble, relieves stress, the list goes on and on! And his workshop teaches you how to use juggling to help any profession if you know how to juggle or not. He'll teach you. Plus if your struggling in a juggling area he will help you with that.

Now the book: Well I've only checked this out of the library a few times I don't own it. But, since I've read it I can review it can't I? ;) It is full of some really good juggling pictures, some of the top jugglers in the business. It is somewhat outdated however The Raspyni Brothers look so young and the pictures of Anthony Gatto are like when he was 12. What is he now like 25/26? I believe it was printed sometime in the late 70's. The many, many pictures of top jugglers is what makes the book go. And there are some tricks throughout the book quite a few actually of like great diversity, like not just normal stuff juggling things like umbrellas or doing a billiarball trick. But real simplicity descriptions of how to do it, I really think you must have some knowledge of juggling and know how to juggle somewhat. But, because of that it is worth a buy for the countless great pictures and the countless of normal and not so normal ideas. Give it a try!

Kit Summers' book is perhaps the most comprehensive juggling book out there. However, while it contains photos and brief explanations of tricks, it lacks detailed, step-by-step instruction. A beginner or accomplished juggler can read about what can be attained with practice, but how to get there, he must leave up to his own devices. I am a seven ball, five club juggler and use the book as a wonderful reference tool; however, for instuction and guidence, books such as Charles Dancey's Encylopedia of Ball Juggling, Dick Franco's Three Ball Digest or Martin Probert's Four Ball Juggling as essential.

Kit Summer's Book "Juggling With Finesse" covers all aspects of Juggling, Balance, and Manipulation. Included are simple through advanced patterns for ball, club, and ring juggling as well as plate spinning, team juggling, club swinging, booking your act, and much, much more. I think that jugglers of all ages and skill levels will find this book to be extremely helpful.

Gillian Bradshaw is a wonderful author with the gift to hold you captive in her descriptive style of writing.

The "Kingdom of Summer" is the 2nd book in GillianBradshaw's Arthurian trilogy. Its story line continues where the"Hawk of May" left off and ends before "In Winter's Shadow"

The story follows Gawain and his servant Rhys as they move through dark age Britain to fight for the light. Anybody with a liking for Arthurian romances will like this book.

Told from the point of view of Gwalchmai's servant Rhys, this novel picks up where "Hawk of May" left off. Sorcery, action, intrigue and Bradshaw's exquisite touch for historical detail make this a worthy second offing in this excellent fantasy series.

This book was ok, but since they have dolls and everything of Kirsten you want to make up your own plot on her life. You think what Shaw has said is 'wrong'.

My 8-year-old absolutely loves these stories. She can't wait to get to the next one and they help her to see what life was like in Kirsten's time (late 1800's). Your little girl will love them, and I love that there is absolutely NO questionable material in these books. I don't have to worry about questionable material or boy crazy stuff that my daughter is too young to deal with yet!

This is another in the American Girls Short Stories series about Kirsten Larson, a nine-year-old girl from Sweden, whose family has moved to frontier Minnesota of 1854. Kirsten's first Fourth of July is coming up, and her family will be going into town. There are many things they need, and everyone hopes that they can raise enough money to buy them. A miracle seems to beacon to Kirsten when she discovers a bee tree brimming with sweet (and valuable) honey. When she decides that she need not inform her parents, that she and her little brother can collect the honey, she learns a valuable and potentially fatal lesson.

Once again, Janet Shaw produces a wonderfully entertaining story, with a valuable lesson. Such wonderful stories, with such excellent illustrations! This is an excellent book, and a worthwhile addition to your library.

[For those parents interested in reading historical fiction about Swedish immigrants, please consider reading The Emigrants series by Vilhelm Moberg.]

Johnny, an ex-marine and ex-con, comes back to his hometown as a condition of his parole. He isn't happy to be there, and the town residents aren't happy to see him. When Johnny meets Nicole, and the locals start displaying their displeasure with Johnny, the book really heats up.

I haven't read very many outstanding series books lately, so I was thrilled to run across Long Hot Summer. I would have liked to see more interaction between the hero and heroine, but overall this book was well-written and it held my interest.

Kudos, Ms. Rosnau. I enjoyed this book from start to finish. The characterizations - particularly Johnny whom I loved! - the setting, the style, and the development of the romance (lots of sexual tension, lots of depth - again, excellent!) reminded me of my favorite author, Marilyn Pappano.

This book read as if it were Ms. Rosnau's tenth - or twentieth - certainly not her first. I can't wait for her next book. I'm thrilled to have discovered her at the beginning of her career.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly, particularly the smoldering, sexy bad boy, Johnny. he's an ex-con who did the crime and has done the time, although it wasn't a particularly heinous crime or fair sentence. The town has it in for him though; only May, the heroine's feisty grandmother, believes in Johnny. Even Nicole wants nothing to do with him at first. But he grows on her, just like he will grow on you...

I too find it hard to believe that this is the author's first book. She writes well and with assurance, and keeps the tension and suspense tight from the first page to the last. I look forward to Ms. Rosnau's next book!

Contributor Laszlo Andor and editor Martin Summers review the implementation of economic reforms in Eastern Europe. They present a strong critical analysis of the effect of economic reforms on the people in the post Soviet bloc countries. In great detail, they cover the fight to implement Western financial investment policies in order to break communist political legacies. The authors express their dissatisfaction with the results of reforms in the last decade. This is an important book for individuals who want another perspective on the rush to implement western financial policies globally. However, the book assumes some strong background knowledge of the region's political history and the financial concept of globalization. We [...] recommend this book to anyone who does business in Eastern Europe or who is intrigued by the politics of economic reform.

Written from a populist perspective, Market Failure does well to analyze the disasters that have overtaken Eastern Europe. The authors have done a good job in relating the political developments in the region to the economic crisis there, and the social breakdown that followed the regression from socialism to capitalism. The decision to focus on food, in one chapter, as an indicator of overall well being (or misery in this case,) was also very apt, and shows up clearly the fallacies of the market fundamentalists who believed that 'shock therapy' and Hayek-Friedman style capitalism were the solution to Eastern Europe's problems. The authors are also on the ball when they compare Eastern Europe's plight to that of the Third World, and when they point out that realpolitik would dictate that E. Europe is inside NATO and outside the EU. However, the authors fail in their advice on two counts. Their analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Bloc is somewhat faulty - it was more a case of a party elite selling out socialism in favour of capitalism, (and whipping up and exploiting popular discontent in order to do so,) than a popular revolt, (see the book Revolution from Above for an indication of this happening in Russia.) Secondly, their suggested solutions to the problems of Eastern Europe, which derive from the theories of Bakunin, Chayanov, E.F. Schumacher, and other naive leftists, is simply not feasible in the age of global capitalist imperialism. In short, they fail to appreciate that Eastern Europe has a simple choice - either the 'free' market or Stalin. In 1989 they made the wrong choice. They're suffering for it now.

Reviewed by Andrew Kilmister in Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, no. 59, 1998 (re-printed with permission): László Andor and Martin Summers, Market Failure: Eastern Europe's "Economic Miracle" (Pluto Press 1998) pp. vi + 209, ISBN 0 7453 0886 4 (pb), £9.99.

Up until now there has been no general overview of economic developments in Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR since 1989 written from the left. This book aims to fill that gap. Written by Laszlo Andor, a lecturer at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences associated with the Hungarian Left Alternative grouping, and by Martin Summers who has worked on Eastern Europe for the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development and the New Economics Foundation, it represents a searing attack on the management of economic policy in the region over the last decade. Those determining this policy, both from inside the region as neo-liberal politicians and from outside as economic advisers, are described by Andor and Summers as "Market Maoists" who are undertaking a "Great Bourgeois Cultural Revolution". Like Mao in the Great Leap Forward of 1959 the Market Maoists have substituted an idealist revolution based on a schematic plan for an analysis of concrete realities. This book is designed to outline the effect of this revolution on the peoples of the region and to suggest alternatives. Andor and Summers begin by outlining the context within which transition in Eastern Europe has taken place, with a special focus on the role of the international institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. They compare the activities of these institutions and related `experts' with their roles in other regions, notably Latin America, and argue that differing institutional policies, for example those propounded by Jacques Attali during his period in charge of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have been systematically sidelined. They then move on to discuss the effect of price liberalisation and associated monopolistic exploitation and the reasons for the collapse of production in the early 1990s. This is followed by an account of privatisation and the formation of a "noveau nomenklatura" through the privatisation process and associated corruption. Later chapters deal with agriculture and rural development, inequality both within the region and between Eastern and Western Europe and political developments in the East on both the left and right. The book concludes with an examination of possible alternatives to the Market Maoist approach. Andor and Summers write well and one very attractive feature of their book is the genuine passion and anger about what has been done in the area which shines through their writing and differentiates it from the vast bulk of what has been written on this subject, especially in conventional textbooks. Another strong feature of their account is its range, as detailed above. The book covers a large amount of issues in a relatively short space. However, this also brings with it certain costs. While there are a number of very telling and suggestive statistics, for example on the dramatic decline in food production, they remain illustrative and there is little space for more detailed analysis. This is especially telling in the sections on inequality where it would have been good to have had some more specific information on the growth and nature of divisions within Eastern Europe since these have been largely ignored in more orthodox accounts. There are also costs associated with trying to cover such a wide range of countries within a single account. In particular there is no real discussion of the extent to which the former Soviet Union exemplifies a distinctively different pattern of transition from that in Eastern and Central Europe. In many ways the most interesting aspect of Andor and Summers' account is their analysis of alternatives. They consider a very diverse set of perspectives here. When writing about privatisation they draw a distinction between Anglo-American capitalism and that practiced in Japan and Germany. The implication is that the Eastern European privatisation programmes are the result of opting for an Anglo-American model and that this was a mistake compared to the Japanese-German alternative. In their final chapter Andor and Summers discuss a number of more specific alternative policy proposals. One of these is that put forward in 1991 by the Polish economist Marek Gruchelski. This was essentially a policy of work sharing, with each worker working every second day to preserve employment during the transition. It would have been interesting to have related this more explicitly to the current debates in Western Europe, particularly France and Italy, on the shorter working week. Other models discussed include the Scottish Community Business movement, Chinese Township and Village Enterprises and credit unions. Finally the authors argue for increased co-operation within Eastern Europe, at least to the level of a payments union. The range of alternatives analysed here shows two strengths of the book; firstly, the insistence throughout that the Market Maoist model with its disastrous consequences was not an inevitable response to the crisis of Stalinist planning and secondly, the authors' willingness to consider concrete issues of policy as well as to describe problems. However, their sheer range and the obvious conflicts that exist between some of them also indicate that this book can only be a start in initiating a critical discussion of the orthodox approach to the East European transition. Andor and Summers would surely be the first to recognise this: they conclude by writing that `if this short book has helped to educate the reader about the nature of the problems we all face and stimulated further informed reflection and committed action, then it will have served its purpose' (p. 191). It is to be hoped that the book will have this effect and will encourage an overdue investigation of possible ways forward in Eastern Europe that will also convey lessons for those opposing Market Maoism in other parts of the world.

Andrew Kilmister.

I think my husband and I enjoyed this book even more than our 1 yr old daughter! The scenes depicted in the book brought back our childhood summers. We're taking our daughter to Maine this summer to do many of the things talked about in the book: eating snap beans and buttered corn, watching fireflies, and slamming screen doors. We hope that this book comes to mean summer for her too.

I think my husband and I are enjoying this book more than our 1 yr old daughter. The scenes depicted in the book bring us back to our childhood summers. This summer we're taking our daughter to Maine to do many of the things shown in the book: eating snap beans and buttered corn, watching fireflies, slamming screen doors. . .we hope that this book will come to mean summer for her too.

A new classic! Our entire family adores this book. There should be a copy of Marshmallow Kisses in every nursery. The illustrations are as meaningful as the exquisitely used words. Every syllable and brushstoke bring back wonderful memories of what a childhood should be.