Doug Flutie recounts his career from his earlest days on the playing field thought his magical first season with the Buffalo Bills. Lots and lots of football facts and game-related jargon here! I would have liked to have learned more about Flutie's personal life; what sort of things really shaped and inspired such an exemplary athlete? Who is the man behind the face mask? I recommend this book for Flutie and football fans everywhere but don't expect any great revelations.

Read this book! I loved it as much as you do! So read it

Excuse me, the 2nd review listed for Doug Flutie's autobiography is for another book entitled "Flutie, a novel". The juxtaposition of the reviewed content is hysterically funny however, so you might want to leave it.

A girl born in Vietnam has fallen in love with a buffalo herder who has seen the mayhem in the war. The girl, Loi lives on the streets. The buffalo herder Khai is whom she has fallen in love with instead of an officer. Those thoughts have been trailing the minds if Loi should leave her family to have a better life in America.

Have you ever wondered how it was for children that had American fathers but lived in Vietnam? Well this story Son of the Buffalo Boy is just about that. The main character Loi was trying to look for her "father" who now lives in America. First she was arranged to marry a person who she didn't like so she faked her death and ran away with the person she loved, Khai. However, when they were getting on the bus Khai didn't make it so Loi had to go to the new town all alone. When she got there, she had no money so she had to practical beg for food and steal money. She also meets her "brother" Joe who was an orphan. He took her to the place were she could register to go to America. He then took her to live with him in Amerisian Park. Two weeks later when she was walking down the street, she saw one of Khai's carvings and she he was there so she left a message with the storeowner. To know if she meets back up with Khai or goes to America you have to read it first.

Loi wanted to get married with Khai but her mom and uncle made her get married with Officer Hiep and she doesn't want to so she escapes to Saigon so she can go to America and find her dad, then she arrived to Saigon andand Khai came after and she found him and didn't want to go anymore so she went back home and got married with Khai in their village. I agree with the author because it was a really good bookand she put a lot of details and good events in the book. My favorite part when she was pretending to look like a bumb on her engagement day with officer Hiep.The title connects with the book. I would recomend this book to probably anybody or people that like a little romance because this bookis kind of like a romance. I think it would be a great book for anyone.

Tom Willard is in the midst of a series of novels focussing on the role of black soldiers in American military history. The first of these, Buffalo Soldiers, begins with Congress creating the first black peacetime units in 1866. Augustus Sharps is a black man who, despite the Civil War, has been held as a virtual slave by a white hunter who purchased him from Indians. Freed by men of the 10th Calvary, Augustus, who is already an expert shot, joins up and spends most his life in the U.S. Army, then joins Buffalo Bill's Wild West show after fighting with the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. The novel closes with America's entry into WWI, Augustus is too old to serve by then, but as his two sons head off to war, he presents them with his battle saber.

While one admires Willard's effort to recover the memory of the black heroes who served America so ably and with so little reward in the years before the nation desegregated, the story is ultimately more earnest than interesting. I'd give it a mild recommendation. A formulaic rehash of classic Western themes, redeemed only by the reminder that blacks played an important and underappreciated role in creating the American West.

GRADE: C

BUFFALO SOLDIERS begins by featuring excerpts from a speech given by Colin Powell in 1992 at the dedication of a monument to honor Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Leavenworth. Immediately, readers become aware of the significance of this monument as well as the important role that these soldiers played in defending our nation and in helping to establish the American West.

As the story begins, we are introduced to Augustus Talbot, later known as Augustus Sharps and the 10th United States Calvary (Colored) and we follow them through more than 30 years of history in the making. Throughout the book readers are constantly reminded of the paradox of African American soldiers. These soldiers faced prejudice and injustice on a daily basis, were provided with hand me down, and in most cases poor quality equipment, yet they defended the United States with unyielding bravery and honor. When Augustus marries and starts a family, readers become privy to the sacrifice, frustrations and hardship that the families of the soldiers had to endure in order to "make a way out of no way." We are also introduced to some Whites who were willing to stand alone to defend and show respect for the African American soldiers and their families.

From the first page, BUFFALO SOLDIERS draws readers into a different time in history where African American men were fighting for a nation that barely recognized them as men, no mind the heroes that they were. While this is a work of historical fiction, readers will learn a great deal about the history through this wonderful book. I found myself searching the Internet to learn more about Buffalo Soldiers in general and some of the specific things, like the types of rifles, mentioned in the book. Willard has written a book that not only educates, but also touches the hearts of the readers. You feel for the characters as they experience hardships, lengthy separations and even death. I gained a deeper respect not only for the Buffalo Soldiers, their wives and families, but also for the brave men and women that have followed in their footsteps through military service. While the Buffalo Soldiers were struggling to build a legacy and gain respect from Whites, they indeed proved themselves to be the greatest of heroes.

Reviewed by Stacey Seay
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Some up this remarkable book about Colored soldiers after the Civil War taking up arms to help tame the newly expanding American Western frontier. This book tackles the expanding never ceasing politics of race between those with power, and those without, those with weapons, and those with none, those who formerly wore chains, and those who fight to keep them off. Willard's portrayal of the harsh environs of the expanding frontier match and may surpass those of Larry MacMurty's "Dead Man's Walk". The stregnth, valor, bravory, courage, and duty Willard gives his colored sodiers through adversity gives the reader a better understanding and apprciation of those who came before us, those who died for us, and those who were forgotten.

True Buffalo Springfield aficionados will be excited that this high-quality book is available, documenting the short but spectacular career of the seminal 60's band. Although too many typos, and some awkward sentences slightly diminish the book's literary attributes, it is nonetheless a fascinating and accurate chronicle of how Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Richie Furay, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin came together from far-flung locations and synergized into this all-time group. The individual bios of the band members are extremely interesting, descriptions of the heady Sunset Strip club days enthralling, and accounts of group crash pads, groupies, jams and friendships with such diverse legends as Jimi Hendrix and Peter Tork absorbing. I was a slightly too-young teen to participate in the Hollywood scene or attend the nightly shows by not only Buffalo Springfield, but The Doors, The Byrds, and so many others, so I'm happy for this book whichs evokes in me the excitement, the dreams, the disappointments and the triumphs of the times. Towards the end of the book, we learn the causes of the group's breakup and get a compelling comparative description of how Stephen Stills and Neil Young exploded into large-scale success stories, while Richie Furay struggled, and Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin foundered. A great book for readers seeking inside knowledge of the times and places of this great band from the magical 60's music period.

This is an outstanding book on what I still feel(after 33 years)is the best band ever. The one aspect that I appreciated about John Einarson's approach,is that he refuses to draw conclusions on each Bandmate,as to who was responcible for the Band's demise.Instead,one is given everyone's take.I cannot say enough for Ritchie Furay's contribution. For one who was literally stuck in the middle of a sometime's maelstrom,his love and respect for each one of his Bandmates shines all throughout each page.No one could have written a better account.

I can't see why the other reviewers don't rate this a 5 star. I've read all the other CSNY books and this one really has the scoop plus there is a tremendous amount of content in this long narrative. One of the things that I enjoyed most about the music of this era were the characters involved. This is the band that spawned Stephen Stills, Neil Young, CSN, CSNY, Loggins & Messina, Poco, (in a way, the Eagles). This was the best of folk rock and yet Buffalo Springfield was largely a disappointment. This band played at my high school for an after-school assembly and what I remember was that the PA system went out. This book recalls that moment. I think the real fans of this era will really enjoy this book...it should have sold more copies.

Many historic characters are mentioned in the novel, however, the emphasis is on Calamity Jane and her letters to her daughter fathered by Wild Bill Hickok. We know the West is passing when the characters must join a Wild West show and tour Europe. There is poignancy and a feeling of loss. We care about these noble scalawags! A good read!
Evelyn Horan - teacher/counselor/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl - Books One - Three

This was an enjoyable summer read, a strange short story of western misfits packed, packaged and baggaged to london. Annie oakley's duel with the duke makes the entire book worth reading, as does the reflections on whales, and the beaver. and...

This book was abosrbing, once it got going. It seemed to take a LONG time before a "story" developed. However, McMurtry spends a lot of time setting and introducing the characters. Sad book, about the final gasps of the Old West. I noticed, however, that some of the characters seemed quite a bit like the ones from Lonesome Dove... Same mannerisms and habits, which was a bit bothersome. Otherwise worth reading!

In this play about three low life thugs, Mamet was trying to take a shot at America and its business ethics. The Indian associations of the title was a loose attempt to suggest the fundamental chicanery of a society whose founding act was the dispossession of the former owners of the land. But the problem with this play is that BOB, DON, and TEACH are so 'dumbed down' and their dialogue so impoverished that all Mamet can do is create a moral fog.

America may well be founded on the crime of dispossession and the genocide of the Indians, but a buffalo's head on a coin in a play hardly suggests any of this and is certainly incapable of presenting the rights and wrongs of the case. The logical extension of capitalist drives may indeed be a criminal society, but a few petty criminals mouthing off phrases of capitalist jargon, obviously detached from the comprehensive arguments of capitalist ideology, hardly proves this inherent criminality or reveals the complex processes by which capitalism encourages crime.

In the play TEACH defines 'free enterprise' as: "The freedom of the individual to embark on any course that he sees fit." In dialogue like this Mamet is apparently hoping to link the amoral self-interest of his characters to the principles of the American Revolution.

But the characters' relevance is limited by a number of factors. First, their ignorance and inability to express themselves severely limits any exposition and critique of society. Also, because Mamet is attempting a particularly bleak and stark form of realist drama. There is no opportunity, as with, say, the early plays of Eugene O'Neill, to present us with archetypal characters embodying whole race or class positions. Who does TEACH stand for besides himself?

Because of the 'literalness' of his form, if we want to find a critique of society, we must look for it more directly in the evident relations of the characters to the broader society. Such an avenue, however, remains firmly blocked as the characters are isolated from society. Indeed, they seem to belong to an almost self-contained little universe, centering around "Don's Resale Shop."

If Mamet is attempting in this play to present us with a 'reductio ad absurdum' showing the inherent criminality of American business ethics, then, he has painted himself into a corner. His characters lack consciousness, social relevance, and symbolism, all factors that allow a playwright to tackle social and moral problems. "American Buffalo" is extremely limited in the extent to which it can refer outwards to the greater society. All he can give us, in effect, is the 'absurdum' without the 'reductio', the criminality detached from the social forces that create it.

This play is a failure, but Mamet was able to return more successfully to these themes in "Glengarry Glen Ross." where the greater eloquence of his characters, dishonest land salesmen, allowed him to express more coherently the amorality of American business imperatives.

I am an actress, playwright, and constant theatergoer, so I'd like to think I know when a play is good...and believe me, this play is excellent. It is stark, realistic, and yet has a fantastic quality all its own. The story follows three small time crooks: Donny, the calm vet, Teach, daring and aching for adventure, and Bobby, the slow, amiable kid. Their plot to steal a valuable coin collection is the center of the play, but so much more goes into it. Honor amoung thieves, the busted American dream, and masculinity are at the core of this piece, and Mamet, with his honest style, pulls off what could very easily be a dumb crook spoof. It's a little hard to read at first, as all Mamet is, but if you envision the story, you'll get through it. I recently saw the play in New York at mamet's Atlantic company with Philip Baker Hall, William H. Macy, and Mark Webber, and it was truly great. I suggest owning the play and getting to a local performance asap.

The play was a very smooth and quick read, containing a unique language, but it was much more than what was on the surface. The text drew me into the play and provided a very realistic view of American society and the of the ideal American business in a very raw sense. Great!

Charles De Lint is my favorite author so I try to read all of his books that I can find. I ordered this one and was disappointed in how short it was. The story was only 32 pages which is really just a small taste of the banquet I'm accustomed to getting in a De Lint book. The Buffalo Man is an engaging little story that brings us back to some characters we've met in other De Lint fantasy. The Crow Girls are among these characters and act in their typical mischievous and mystifying way. I always welcome the opportunity to visit with De Lint's characters but was disappointed that this visit was so brief.

This is a fabulous chapbook story by one of the best writers alive today. It is not a "pamphlet" as Augusta, Georgia thinks. It is a chapbook which many true collectors love and of course collect. It is 32 pages and now that it is out of print highly sought after. It is as engrossing as all his works and will remain on my bookshelf as long as I live.

This is not a large book. It is a distillation of character and plot till both are the purest essence of a fine story. I found the characters to be fully "fleshed out"(as is usual for De Lint). De Lint can do in a few pages what other authors must take chapters to do. Love the Crow Girls. I greatly enjoyed this book and reccomend it to anyone who like their fantasy with great characters and wonderful storyline.

Well it's about two girls named India and Brenda. They do weird things and I loved the cafeteria thing, but the buffalo was ugh...it was too weird. I always thought I was the weirdest, BUT I GUESS NOT!

The most sophisticated and unusual book around for expressing yourself. Miss.Pinkwater gives Teen/Kid readers the idea that "WEIRD" is not a bad word. In fact, it means UNIQUE and Standing out. Breifly, it means turn ordainary into EXTRODAINARY!

This is one of my favorite books of all time, you would think that someone who is a senior in high school would have more literary favorites, like grapes of wrath, but I think this book is really deep. It shows you that you have to be yourself, to find friends who will accept you for who you are, and not who they want you to be. It tells you that the administration will be wrong, and you have to find ways to deal with and get around them, ( and that music teachers are the ones who will do it). It tells you to find your own nitch, and make life what you want it to be, and it does this in a fun and crazy way, that is unbelieviably funny, and poignant. I have had a lot of things that happen in this book, happen to me, or one shape or another, it isn't always so crazy as adopting a buffalo, but I did join the euphonium section of the marching band this year, when I didn't even know how to play. I first picked this book up during junior high, and have read it about once a year since then. There are very few books I can do that too, I am not sure why it works, or what made it click, it is enough to know that it has. I wish there were more people like Brenda in the world, we could use them. Oh, and for the record, during all my finals in high school I have worn outfits as original as Brenda's first ones for luck, ( I didn't get the idea from her, but that book helped me to stick with it). You realize that the people who care so much what you wear, aren't the kind of people you want to be friends with anyway. Anyway, please read this book. If you happen to read this, and want to respond, please reply back to Oheponine@aol.com thanks

I was stunned by how a subject such as the Wild West shows could be presented in such a tiresome manner. The author makes the same two or three points over and over again (the meat of her book) and spends the rest of the book detailing lithographs and program covers -- copies of which appear in the book. I stuck with it to the end, but was frustrated by it being a bad read and a waste of time.

After checking this book out of the library and reading some of it, we knew we had to own it. Kasson writes well for the serious amateur of the Wild West, and the scholarship appears solid. It's clearly a work of contemporary history-writing, in that Kasson is very attentive to how we re-tell our past to ourselves, how myths and celebrity develop. In this respect it resembles Paul Reddin's "Wild West Shows" (University of Illinois Press, 1999), which we also recommend. Readers who want to know what it was REALLY like on the plains will want to consult other books.

This is an outstanding scholarly study of Buffalo Bill and his Wild West show. Kasson deals with her subject sympathetically and never leaps to politically correct judgments. Kasson not only offers a biography of Buffalo Bill and a study of the cultural meaning of his Wild West, but also a study of how Indians and other marginalized groups figured in the Wild West show. Excellent book. Buy it.

The Unknown City by Michelle Fine and Lois Weis did a fantastic job of telling the story of homelessness and poverty from the perspective of the poor and working class. The book is based on interviews from different racial perspectives in the New York/New Jersey area. The book claims to represent the Generation Xers between the ages of 23 and 35. However, readers of the Unknown City do not get this perspective. The voices and points of view seem to come from an older generation. The youthful perspecitve is lost in the authors' main concerns and discussions.
All this aside, the authors do a good job in contrasting the racial perspectives on the causes of and dealings with poverty. The viewpoints of Whites, African Americans, and Latinos all seemed to be different. We understand the authors' intentions in writing this book--to uncover the different perspecitves on poverty from voices not usually heard. In the end, readers are hoping for possible solutions to the problems introduced.

The Unknown City by Michelle Fine and Lois Weis did a fantastic job of telling the story of homelessness and poverty from the perspective of the poor and working class. The book is based on interviews from different racial perspectives in the New York/New Jersey area. The book claims to represent the Generation Xers between the ages of 23 and 35. However, readers of the Unknown City do not get this perspective. The voices and points of view seem to come from an older generation. The youthful perspecitve is lost in the authors' main concerns and discussions.
All this aside, the authors do a good job in contrasting the racial perspectives on the causes of and dealings with poverty. The viewpoints of Whites, African Americans, and Latinos all seemed to be different. We understand the authors' intentions in writing this book--to uncover the different perspecitves on poverty from voices not usually heard. In the end, readers are hoping for possible solutions to the problems introduced.

Though I felt this book was boring in places, I think that Fine and Weis do a terrific job in giving poor and working-class Gen X'ers a voice in crying out against the public policy that is perpetuating their families inability to move out of the inner-city and become "productive members of society". I am from a white, upper-middle class family and have never been exposed to issues such as these. Fine and Weis interview various ethnic and racial groups in Buffalo, NY and Jersey City, NJ and then generalize their findings to the experience of all such racial/gender groups living in inner cities around the country. From other research, they prove that this extrapolation is not unfounded.

What I loved so much about this book is that they interviewed (and extensively quote throughout the book) over 150 people of various backgrounds in these cities. To hear of the plight that these people go through was truly saddening to me. This book made me ask the question: to what extent do I allow the media to form my opinion on issues such as these? All I am used to seeing on the news is stories about moms who cheat welfare and deadbeat dads who only care for themselves. It is extraordinary to hear of the situations and circumstances BEHIND these stories however.

While I cannot evaluate this book solely on the basis of its sociological merits (I've only taken two classes in college in sociology), I can tell you that this book has the ability to change your stereotypes...as I mentioned, especially if they have been formed by the media! The struggle for survival in the inner city is shown in a way that can only make the reader wonder: what would I do if I lived there? What could I do to help these people? A great book. It gets 4 stars because it is boring in a few sections.