5 comments about Reach for the Sky: The Story of Douglas Bader D.S.O., D.F.C..

1. I ordered this book for myself after having read a borrowed original first edition hard cover from a friend.
   The story is wonderful and inspiring, and I wanted to own this book. This soft cover reissue version is O.K.,
   but the photo reproductions in it are shamefully bad. I'll continue to search for an original copy ...



2. I read this book in middle school YEARS ago, well, ok, I wore this book out in middle school. When I saw it on Amazon I had to get it! What an amazing, inspirational story. Anyone with an interest in flying or history will find this a fantastic read!



3. An excellent and accurate story of a historical figure, Douglas Bader. It was interesting to read and thoroughly enjoyable.



4. I read this book when I was 9 yrs. old and now that I read it again I think that this is one of those books that I will keep and read over and over.
   This is a riveting story that makes you feel like you are there experiencing the events yourself.



5. This was one of the first war ace biographies I've ever read, back when I was fourteen.
   
   It's a pleasure to see it published again, to replace my old copy.
   
   Of course, Mr. Brickhill seems to be a huge fan of Bader, but who in England is not, even those who realize that Bader had a difficult temper, but a difficult temper that was responsibels for getting back in a warplane in war tiem RAF without both legs!
   
   Good read, a classic.

5 comments about This Just in: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV.

1. I got the book to have it signed by its author Bob Schieffer. Unfortunately, the book was not in a good condition at all. Half of the front page was ripped off and there was a "low prize" button on the cover that I could not get off.



2. Schieffer is a good storyteller and has seen a lot of important news from the last 40 years. He also manages to have something nice to say about nearly everyone he discusses. This book is certainly not a spiteful political diatribe, and is generally very pleasant.
   
   I gave the book 4 stars because of one small point that nagged me as I read the book. For the Nixon era, he interviews many of the important players in Nixon's administration, or at least consults their memoirs, including Nixon himself, Melvin Laird and H.R. Haldeman. The one glaring exception is Chuck Colson, who has written very thoughtfully about the role he played in the Nixon administration, is very contrite for the crimes he committed during that period, and has done a world of good in this country's prisons since having served his own time. Colson very candidly described the m.o. of the administration as a flawed "ends justifies the means" mentality. Why would Schieffer not interview him, or at least consult the significant body of work Colson has produced on the subject?
   
   In general though, I thought it was a very evenhanded and fair-minded account, and Schieffer deserves kudos.



3. Bob Schieffer who spent his life in journalism and was the anchor of 'Face the Nation'. He offers a behind-the-scenes account of his more than forty years in journalism, including coverage of the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and Capitol Hill. Mr. Schieffer also discusses his reporting of Kennedy's assassination, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, Watergate and September 11, 2001.
   
   You can tell that he enjoyed his career as a journalist and seems to be honest in his recollection of his career. And his brushes with those he interacted with. Though he does name drop and seem to let us know when ever fate favored him. Other then some of the few self-serving statements on his personal life and social climbing, his anecdotes are still worth reading. Even though he seems to never have met a person he didn't like. Do not expect to learn anything new, but it will jog your memory of many familiar events.



4. I enjoyed this book because it gave an insider's perspective on many of the most important news stories of my lifetime. Having worked for a CBS affiliate in the early 80s, it brought back many memories. But what I took away was a sense of Bob Schieffer's genuine, unflashy but solid character. I've never met him, but I watched his work over the years as the "backup" anchor for CBS News. Stars have come and gone, but he has always handled that duty with quiet grace. He was never one to grand-stand, to wax with righteous indignation or pomposity. He's never tried a special sweater or a silly signoff (remember "Courage"?) to boost his ratings. I'll bet he never even owned a blow dryer. Just did his job, said his piece, bringing hard work and common sense to the task. To me, this book was a heartening reminder that the basics really can pay off in the long run.



5. Bob Schieffer is not only an outstanding reporter and anchor but an excellent story teller as well. His accounts of the history he has seen make the reader feel a part of the story. Highly recommended to anybody interested in knowing more about the stories that have shaped our lives.

5 comments about In the Shadow of the Moons: Library Edition.

1. Nansook Hong paints a painful picture of her marriage to HyoJin Moon, but she does not own up to the full truth of her parents' machinations to get her married into the Moon family. Eyewitnesses tell of Nansook visiting the Moon household and knowing full well of HyoJin's excesses in advance of her marriage. The Hongs wanted desperately for their family to be entwined with the Moon family, and after arranging for one child to be wed to the first Moon daughter, they pushed Nansook to marry a Moon son. Though I don't know all the motives, the point is that there was an agenda behind her marriage and probably this book that Ms. Hong has not been honest about. It is only too easy to paint an unflattering portrait of Rev Moon and his wife but at least some of this is suspect, given her own deceit.



2. The only people who can dismiss a book like this are the misguided followers of the hypocritical cult leader, Sun Myung Moon. As an atheist who currently attends the University of Bridgeport, I ate this book up in a day. It bears striking resemblance to Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven," which documents the underpinnings of another cult, Warren Jeffs' FLDS of Colorado City, AZ.
   
   I should be careful in my use of the term 'cult,' however. What is a cult? What is a religion? They are the same entity. That judgment simply lies in the eyes of the beholder. Just as Nansook Hong points out in the epologue, all religions claim that their way is the true path to heaven. The only difference between major religions like Roman Catholicism and Judaism, and 'cults' such as the FLDS, Jonestown, and the Unification Church is their size and level of acceptance by the public. In this way, the Pope and Sun Myung Moon are both equals. They are both equally nothing.
   
   It is clearly obvious that Sun Myung Moon is a madman who takes advantage of the socially vulnerable. This is he has such a hatred for communism - he preys on those affected by tragedy by giving them some type of bright future to look forward to. He prays on the weak. He is a con man. He claims to have spoken directly to Jesus in Korea as a young man, and has duped thousands around the world into believing he IS the second coming.
   
   The extremely brave Nansook Hong stood up for herself and left the Moon Compound to have a better life for herself and for her children. Any unificationist who claims to be a loving human being who would argue with her motives needs to look deep inside themselves. Sun Myung Moon's son Hyo Jin is an awful person. Nansook writes about being arranged in a marriage as a 15 year old girl, being coerced into coming to America as an illegal alien, being held against her will at East Garden, being abused, raped, and cheated on by the supposed 'Son of the Second Coming of Jesus,' and having to put up with drugs, alcohol abuse, and neglect for fourteen years of her life. Sun Myung Moon preaches to his followers about the importance of family and lineage, while his own dysfunctional family is the only one he should be paying any attention to. It is even documented in this biography as well as many other publications that Sun Myung Moon himself cheated on his wife and has a child with another woman. Both Sun Myung Moon and his eldest son are criminals, and need to be locked up. In my opinion, Moon got off light with his one year in prison for tax evasion.
   
   Unfortunately, I can hear the unificationsists already in my mind dismissing this book as 'the work of satan,' as I am going to try to show it to them next week. All I can really do is educate as many people as possible about how mentally ill and irresponsible Sun Myung Moon is and hope that his end is nearing...before more unfortunate people like Nansoon Hong are forced into a world of destruction at the hands of this 'True Family.'



3. == quote
   But, as Nansook Hong reveals in this devastating tell-all account, Sun Myung Moon does not live up to his own teachings. He has frequent affairs, which he rationalizes as "providential", that is, mandated by God.
   
   == end quote
   
   == quote
   
   "My own parents saw no evidence of sexual misconduct when they were each recruited independently to join the church in Seoul."
   (In the Shadow of the Moons, pp. 26-27)
   
   == end quote
   
   I know the UM since the mid 1970's and for a quite a long time the only accusation leveled against Rev. Moon was that he was married 4 times (while in fact he is only married 2 times) later those allegations of just being married 4 times was changed to having had sex with female followers.
   
   Chung Hwa Pak, one of Rev. Moon's first disciples, caused
   considerable controversy by confirming these accusations in a text widely circulated by critics (and later published in Japanese) called The Tragedy of the Six Marys. Pak, who had left the Unification Church, claimed that Rev. Moon practiced during the church's early years sex rituals with, among others, six married female disciples ("the six Marys") who were to have prepared the way for the virgin who would marry him and become the True Mother. The church vehemently denied the allegations. Pak eventually returned to the fold and, shortly before dying, recanted all the accusations in a second text he authored in 1995, called The Apostate.
   
   Similar accusations were discussed earlier in libel cases in Korea and not proved. In 1989, after a ten-year legal case, the Seoul District Criminal Court (79 ko dan 3372) convicted a protestant minister, Rev. Shin Sa-hun, of criminal libel after his accusations of sexual misconduct could not be proved. In another case decided by the Seoul District Civil Court (83 ga hap 3012), damages were paid by Tak Myung-hwan, a well-known critic of the Unification Church, to a woman who had been accused of having an illegitimate son with Rev. Moon and to her son.
   
   Corrections were published by the Christian newspapers Gidok Shinbo on October 8, 1983, and Hanhook Gidok Gongbo, on October 1, 1983, after printing similar accusations of sexual misconduct in the early Unification Church. Part of the retraction stated, "The article 'The Secret Sexual Practices of the Unification Religion' was a repetition of information published during the 1950s, and we have found it to have no basis in fact."



4. === quote
   
   Pay no attention to the negative criticisms by those who are obviously Moonies. This is should be required reading. Nansook Hong had the courage to endure and to finally escape the clutches of this dangerous cult led by the Korean flake who thinks he's God.
   
   === end
   
   Funny, so people should not listen to the story of those who are still within the UM, why is this?
   
   Also Rev. Moon himself doesn't claim to be God, this is always said by others, Rev.Moon stresses the point without God he would be nothing...



5. Pay no attention to the negative criticisms by those who are obviously Moonies. This is should be required reading. Nansook Hong had the courage to endure and to finally escape the clutches of this dangerous cult led by the Korean flake who thinks he's God. Not only is it run by one of the worlds most selfish and greediest families, they stand to gain even more under the President's Faith-Based program. Your tax dollars at work.

5 comments about The Life and Times of Queen Elizabeth I/the Life and Times of Queen Elizabeth II (Naxos Audio).

1. I have an old copy of the book, which I have reread a couple of times. This is the most readable biography of Elizabeth I that I have read.



2. This book is incredibly well written. It also has the ring of truth. It is not just a biography of Elizabeth I, though it does that superbly, with great insight and scholarship, and always with documentation so that there is a tie-in to actual happenings. But this book also writes in depth about the key people around Queen Elizabeth, so that they too come alive, and sets them all firmly in a vivid and well-described background. This book is fascinating, literate, and a great read, especially for those of us who have an interest in this period in history and its characters.



3. A truly excellent book for someone who, like me, wants to find out not only about the events of Elizabeth's life but also what Elizabeth was like as a person. The writing style is clear and very enjoyable and makes Elizabeth seem alive again. As a schoolboy in England, I studied the Tudor Period, but this book goes way above and beyond what one is taught at school level. I learned so much more about Elizabeth's life and personality, that it has given me a whole new level of respect for someone who I had already held in high esteem. Highly recommended.



4. This excellent book paints an unforgettable portrait of Elizabeth I, "Good Queen Bess" to her loving subjects. Her fascinating life and vibrant personality are caught with great truth and clarity. Elizabeth Regina-LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!



5. This book is not a 'life and times' volume. It is single-minded in its telling of Elizabeth's life. I found the book to be captivating. I keep it on my desk at work for those rare days when I don't go out to lunch. I know that I can always open the book to any page and find an interesting story ahead.

5 comments about Entering the Circle: Ancient Secrets of Siberian Wisdom Discovered by a Russian Psychiatrist.

1. A fascinating look at how Siberian shamanic practices fit into the work of psychiatry. I always love it when two seemingly unconnected parts of the world slide together, especially in the world of medicine and healing. Suddenly we realise that we were talking about the same truths in the first place, only we approached it from different directions.
   I would like to honour Olga for her bravery in setting her experiences down on paper in order to share more healing with the world



2. I would give this book four out of five stars simply because I believe the message within it is so profound. However just as I have found with other Russian novels, the narrative and setting are so gloomy and depressing - so Russian - that I found myself feeling less than uplifted at the end. Nevertheless, having bookmarked the relevent passages, I was able to reread the important message contained within the book.
   On the whole it was like wading through mud with gumboots full of treacle but worth it in the end. Definitely worth a read.



3. The book is quite insightful and honest. It's a blessing that Shamanism, which was oppressed for years and banned from practice by Russians themselves, is still alive and getting interest from all around the world. During the Soviet Russia, Shamans were killed, their drums and villages were destroyed with the fear that it'd be transferred to next generations. The birth place for Shamanism is Altais, and several Turkic nations are keeping the tradition alive today, including Sakhas and Tuva Turks. After reading several reviews, I needed to make certain points for the beginner in this magical world of spirituality. Umai is the most beloved wife of Sky God, protector of the unborn and guardian for children. Umai is considered to be the hihgest Goddesss by Turks and Mongolian alike. Another point is that Shamanism, pronouced Shaa-manism, is a Turkic word and do not belong to Mongols only. It's not a religion yet a way to worship and honor Kok-Tengri (Sky God), and all the spirits, which in the perception of Shamanism, everything has a soul.
   
   For the enthusiast, also Animal and Shaman is a good beginning book.



4. If you read my review of The Altai Chronicles by Carol Hiltner and you read this book you will see why I said Hiltner's book was phony. This is 100 times better. As a long time student of shamanism I see the ring of truth here; if she is conning us as one reviewer suggested then she did a super job. I enjoyed her second book but not quite as much. So Olga, when can we expect number three? (not counting the one in French)



5. As I read through this book I found it to be a lifting experience. Olga is a very talented writer and I was swept away by her story. I almost felt like I took her journey with her.
   
   This is a very eye-opening experience. To see a medical doctor, going through something that she could not believe herself, and becoming a true shaman was a thrill. I learned a lot about shamans, Siberian wisdom and the Russian traditions.
   
   Very enjoyable.

No comments about Martin Luther King, Jr: Young Man With a Dream, Library Edition (Ready Reader).

2 comments about My Life as a Seer: The Lost Memoirs.

1. Have you ever wondered what it might be like to see inside the mind of a great psychic? To be able to access information about people and places that reaches far beyond the physical dimension? Edgar Cayce's biography, expertly compiled by a professional journalist and editor from Cayce's never-before-published autobiographical notes, a personal diary, and lecture records, allows us just such a rare glimpse. Cayce (1877-1945) is the world's best-documented psychic, with over 14,000 verbatim transcripts of 'readings' on topics ranging from health concerns, reincarnation, astrology, spiritual development, earth change predictions, and other metaphysical topics catalogued in the Library of the Association for Research Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, VA.

   Edgar Cayce is also known as the "Father of Holistic Medicine," whose unorthodox naturopathic cures, while helping many regain their health who had been given up as hopeless by the medical establishment, once led to his arrest on grounds of practising medicine without a licence.

   In "My Life As a Seer," we get to know the Edgar Cayce who struggled with self-doubts regarding his psychic gift, and with concerns about the impact which the information from his readings might have on those who sought his counsel. We meet Cayce the family man, a photographer by profession, whose deep faith sees him through a series of defeats, including the destruction by fire of his studio; the closure, for lack of funds, of the hospital he had spent years trying to build; an eviction from his home; and physical injuries suffered while being the target of a humiliating attempt to expose him as a fraud. Through it all, Cayce remained a sincere and humble man,who was motivated not by fame nor by riches (which eluded him all his life), but by an overwhelming desire to serve God and help his fellow human beings.

   "My Life As a Seer," as grandson Charles Thomas Cayce says in the foreword, represents "the first account of Edgar Cayce's life told completely in his own words. He does not dwell on all of the personal aspects of his life, but focuses primarily on those experiences that marked him since childhood as decidedly different from anyone else in his world."

   Reading this fascinating book is the closest most of us will come to talking with Edgar Cayce in this lifetime.




2. Much of the Kirkus review was accurate, although, the point that New Agers will find little that resonates is probably the most compelling reason to buy this book. It isn't New Age mystical garbage---I wasn't levitating when I read this book.

   Cayce is a fascinating character. Because of his deep faith, he wrestled with the concept of reincarnation and tries to reconcile a biblical explanation for what he experienced in the "life" readings. I found the final chapters of the book more interesting than much of the rest of the book. But it deserves better treatment overall than was given by Kirkus.

No comments about Who Do You Think You Are?.

5 comments about Rock & Roll: An Unruly History (Bookcassette(r) Edition).

1. I read this book almost ten years ago, and I still remember it as a remarkable work that put everything into perspective -- a kind of enlightenment experience. I especially loved Palmer's background on the beginnings of rock & roll in the call-and-response tent revivals.
   
   With regard to the Elvis controversy below, I don't think Palmer ever suggests that Elvis invented rock & roll -- he painstakingly documents the contributions of dozens of black artists like Pinetop Smith, T-Bone Walker, Roy Brown, Goree Carter (to whom he credits the first rock & roll record), Ike Turner etc, well before the Elvis "invasion" of the mid-1950s.
   
   I loved it.



2. I ordered this book after savoring the experience of the PBS series. This book keeps it with me and expands it. Far out! I was so happy that this series was playing on TV while I was writing my novel "Forever Retro Blues" because it touched on so much I was writing about. Oh happy days when I found out there was a book it was based on.



3. An intriguing archaeological dig down to the murky muddy roots of rock 'n' roll -- sifting through race politics and dogma back to pre-war gospel, blues and jazz, to the Caribbean, to Africa.

   Robert Palmer was one of the best rock 'n' roll writers and historians. This is the basis for the PBS TV series ROCK 'N' ROLL, which,unfortunately, did not have nearly the depth of this (it quickly dispensed with rock's roots and showed only Elvis and other latecomers in its first episode). Sadly, Palmer died before he could flesh out this work, which remains a blueprint for future writers to follow on researching rock 'n' roll's roots. Go for it!




4. I had to write this to offer a different opinion to the one-star review below. Robert Palmer was one of this country's best music writers and a man who died way too young. This book is not his best (that'd be DEEP BLUES), but he does an excellent job of capturing the broad history of rock 'n' roll. He discusses what led up to that crucial moment at Sun Studios in 1954 (I don't think he's trying to say that the music sprang full-grown from Elvis) and where the music traveled from there.

   Bear in mind, however, that this book also served as a companion to a PBS special. That it's able to stand alone without the visuals attests to its worth. It badly deserves to be back in print.




5. Robert Palmer is rock journalism's leading musicologist. And if that isn't enough to scare you off, then allow me to keep trying. Let me note, by the way, that I experienced this book the old-fashioned way--via words on paper. If I refer to something left out of this abridged, read-aloud version, consider yourself lucky.

   "Rock & Roll: An Unruly History" is your usual inept mock-musicological rock survey that strains to explain how Elvis Presley could possibly have invented a musical form created by Blacks in the mid-1940s. And this is what all rock and roll historianship comes down to: proving that Elvis was the Father of the form, in spite of unlimited evidence to the contrary. (Palmer, who has no patience for such conventionalities as "neatness and order," apparently also can't be bothered with burden of proof.)

   And Palmer rejects any rock-genesis theory that would suggest the music started in one place and at one time, even though this is how everything gets its start, including popular music forms. Thus, after quoting Lionel Hampton's explanation that rock and roll evolved from jazz (which it did; countless mid-1940s recordings attest to this), Palmer rejects the idea as "simplistic thinking." The meaning of this non sequitor is as follows: Any definition of rock and roll that doesn't begin with Elvis has to be wrong. This is the essence of rock historianship.

   Like most rock writers, Palmer is a gifted wordsmith. He drops names all over the place and fills his paragraphs with important-sounding quotes, and everything sounds formal and historical. But this is hype, not history. Respect your intelligence and save your money.

5 comments about E=mc2: A Biography Of The World's Most Famous Equation.

1. I would say that this is a history book about science and scientists - not a science book. It is history "lite." The author found a cleaver and creative way to talk about science and scientists - to expose the novice reader of science to many people and historical situations that he may not have been aware of. I had previously read about most everyone who was mentioned in the book. As other reviewers have pointed out the author often oversimplifies an issue and many of his statements could be debated - and are debated. But for a lite read for a non-scientist this book is a reasonable first exposure. If you want to become more of an expert one would have to go a lot deeper. Even the history involved gets more complicated than this brief outline. But, it was fun.



2. If you are looking for the real biography of E=mc2, this isn't it. If you are looking for the usual glorification of Einstein and cohorts, this will do. In tune with the second objective rather than the first, there is usual absence of the long history of the equation, which stems from Newton's implication that matter and the motion of matter somehow were related. Hegel's dictum on inseparability ("Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion") is nowhere to be found. And like Einstein's 1905 paper, there is little or no mention of those, such as Preston, Poincaré, and De Pretto, who were important in the development of the equation. Like Einstein, Bodanis completely omits Hasenöhrl's work, which was published in the same journal a year earlier, with a very similar equation (m = (8/3)E/c2) and a very similar title ("On the radiation of the bodies in motion" vs. Einstein's "On the electrodynamics of the bodies in motion"). Like most modern physicists and cosmologists, Bodanis perpetuates the conception that matter can, with a wave of the magic wand, turn into "pure energy." One never finds out exactly what that "pure energy" is supposed to be. The fact is, that the equation merely describes the conversion of one type of the motion of matter into another type of the motion of matter. This can be done with the use of classical mechanics simply by assuming that the supposed "empty space" of Einstein contains matter capable of receiving motion released from the atom during fission or fusion. Einstein's premature rejection of the ether therefore gave scientific credence to the idea of "matterless motion," an oxymoron near and dear to the hearts and "souls" of the religiously trained and mystically inclined populace. With that background, Einstein could speculate that space was nevertheless "curved" even though it supposedly contained nothing at all. The speculation has continued to be evermore rampant and ridiculous, with the whole universe supposedly exploding out of nothing, 13 dimensional "strings," and the equally oxymoronic parallel and multi-universes. On the plus side, Bodanis has some interesting gossip about the physics establishment before and after 1905. He tries better than most to give credit for the women, such as du Chatelet, who made significant, mostly unheralded contributions mostly to the scientific end of things. I didn't mind the advertised dumbed-down aspect of the book so much as the fact that we never really found out what it was that matter was turning into. Bodanis fell for the indeterministic "pure energy" propaganda hook line and sinker. Penance for writing this book should include repeating Hegel's most important assumption out loud 100 times: "Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion," "Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion"... To see what happens when that assumption is used consistently, see The Scientific Worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein



3. This is a very disappointing book because the author fails to do what he says he is going to do in chapter 1. He says that he is writing the book so people like Cameron Diaz (!) will be able to understand the equation. But even the delightful Cameron would have no real understanding of the science involved after reading this book - not even in a popular science kind of way.
   It's actually just a story of some of the scientists who helped us to understand the parts of Einstein's famous equation, but even this story is incomplete because he virtually ignores many of the major players. Even Galileo gets only a few words!
   Also, the author is not helped by his poor use of analogy. For instance, he says that as an object increases in speed its mass "swells" up. Anyone with no prior understanding of relativity would be totally confused by this comparison.
   If you want to understand the theory you would do better reading another book. It's not as though popular science books on the topic are rare.



4. Wonderful book. A teacher of mine showed the movie in class, and I was spellbound, so I proceeded to buy the book; I was not disappointed. This book is quite captivating, and I found it difficult to put down. It splits the equation up into five different sections: E for energy, = for equals, m for motion, c for celeritas or the speed of light, and 2 for squared. Keep in mind this book is not for those wishing to learn the exact mathematical development of this formula; it is more of a history of the people and events that led to Einstein's brilliant revelation and final development of the theory. I would recommend it to anyone.



5. Bought as a gift for my husband. He loved it, so I read it. It's incredibly interesting and thought provoking.