This book deals with the complex issue of race, it starts off quite negatively pointing out the differences between people of different races using words such as 'mongoloid' and 'negroid'. The book however as it progress' does become more positive although this does not completely cancel out the negative aspects.Still quite a good book for educating younger children though.

A serial killer is coming to Jesus Creek, Tennessee. While all the residents are getting ready for the big St. Patrick's Day celebration, fear is stalking the town. I enjoyed the first two books about Jesus Creek a bit more than this one. Seems like the author was stretching a little farther to come up with a plausible plot. Was not a mystery that kept me up late trying to finish it.

Here is a somewhat fanciful look at the life of Warren Nelson. Mr. Nelson had a superb career in the Nevada gaming industry, and his life story is fun, easy reading. His account of his experiences as a partner at the Club Cal Neva and Palace Club are good reading.

While this small book is just right as an introductions to the questions one should ask about ancient civilizations in the Americans, it is not good for someone with some historical background. Indeed it best serves scholars interested in the ancient Americas better than anyone else.

Arretta's story is the story of many women--young, vulnerable, taken advantage of by abusive men, she remained strong. Her circumstances growing up during the Depression and as an adult are heartbreaking--yet she survived with an amazingly positive attitude. This story is worth reading, even though the editing and proofreading badly needed work--spelling and grammar errors abound. This may be due to the fact that Arretta had a very limited formal education, but someone should have done a muchbetter job of working with the manuscript before it was printed.

Being a devoted fan of Joyce Adams, my expectations to this book were great. Unfortunately, they were not fulfilled.

The book stills gives you that good feeling inside while reading it, in addition to some funny incidents....

I was looking foward to reading and enjoying the early work of Robert Adams. The essay and photographs work very well together but the cover images are the only ones that are reproduced with any quality. If you compare the tonal range of the inside reproductions with the cover work you will be disappointed. I kept the book because I did enjoy the essay and I collect books by Robert Adams. Too bad the reproductions are so weak.

I want to know how to make hash! Please writ me.

In it's original incarnation as a monthly comic, the "Transfer of Power" story arc was one of the most troubled comics in recent history. In it's collected edition, it's a spotty mess, with a few glimpses of brilliance.

Writer Mark Millar had already decided Transfer of Power would be his last story arc, but after completing one issue, Artist Frank Quitely jumped ship to illustrate Marvel's New X-Men. (I consider Quitely's abrupt departure from the book that made him famous at best unprofessional. At worst, downright $h!tty...) This left DC/Wildstorm with a big problem: Since the artist they tapped to finish off the story, Art Adams, is notoriously slow, how could they keep the book coming out in a relatively timely fashion? Answer: Since The Authority are killed and replaced by an even MORE vicious team in the first chapter, Tom Peyer and Dustin Nguyen would create a 4-issue fill-in that would detail the new team's adventures. Adams STILL wasn't able to get his three issues done, so Gary Erskine needed to do the art chores on the final issue. And in the midst of all of this, September 11th made the suits at DC rethink their stance on publishing such a violent book....So this simple 4-issue story became an 8-issue mess that dragged on for almost two years, and also became the swan-song for The Authority. (After all the hubbub, DC is quietly getting ready to lauch a new version of The Authority, with an unknown creative team....yay.)

The story starts off strong, as a Government sanctioned Hillbilly/Billion Dollar Cyborg is sent to kill The Authority, and seemingly succeeds. The team is replaced with a bunch of brutal look-alikes, who waste no time in putting the entire Universe in deadly peril. Only The Midnighter (with little Jenny Quantum in tow) has any hope of putting things right. The DRASTIC differences in artistic styles really make the book seem schizophrenic; Nguyen's style just doesn't mesh with Quitely & Adams' cartoony artistry, and the realistic renderings of Gary Erskine aren't a good fit to follow two chapters of Art Adams. All of the artists involved are very talented, but read as a whole, the book has no artistic flow. Peyer's fill-in arc is okay, but nothing special. It could have easily been skipped entirely, and nothing would have been lost, story-wise. I did enjoy the hillbilly killer, Seth, but the final fate he suffers is taken whole cloth from Garth Ennis' excellent Preacher. I was hoping for something a little worse. I also enjoyed the realistic relationship between The Authority's Batman/Superman duo, The Midnighter & Apollo. Maybe one of the best romantic relationships in comics today.

While FAR from the best Authority tale (See Warren Ellis' issues for those), Transfer of Power has it's share of powerful moments, and is worth a look for fans of the team. I just wish they could have gotten a better send-off.....

Societal evolution seldom travels a straight path. As Professor Adam Fairclough succinctly titles one chapter of Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-1910, human progress tends to be "two steps forward, one step backward". Several decades after the book opens with the collapse of Reconstruction, American blacks are in a worse condition than they were immediately after the Civil War. The title seems almost ironic as segregation grows stronger and black life becomes harsher between the world wars.

However, this book doesn't claim to be a sociological study but a historical account of 110 years. In that sense it falls short.

Better Day Coming's greatest weakness is its attempt to cover the period of 1890-2000. The last chapter opens immediately after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., but apparently the author thinks little of import followed the civil rights leader's murder. The years between 1968 and 2000 are covered in a sketchy 14 pages that fail to mention prominent figures such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Fairclough dances around current issues relevant to the black community. Rodney King gets more mention than Jesse Jackson. The author is an educator and the last chapter resembles a textbook that acknowledges the latter material is insignificant and probably won't be covered on the final exam. Better Days Coming would have been much stronger if it focused only on the period between Reconstruction and the death of Dr. King.

Nonetheless, Professor Fairclough is a crisp writer. Although the problem noted above (along with one superfluous chapter that inexplicably rehashes previous material) hurts this book, it has strengths.

Better Day Coming predictably chronicles the lives of such prominent luminaries as Ida Wells, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Dr. King, and Malcolm X. Yet it pays homage to several lesser know figures: Stanley Levinson, a brilliant and realistic white businessman; Fannie Lou Hamer, who led the charge for civil rights in Mississippi; and A. Philip Randolph, the socialist leader who proved a great inspiration to so many in the civil rights movement.

Fairclough also excels in his exploration of areas not normally covered in similar introductory works such as the vital role the United States Communist Party played in the Thirties. The author brings a fresh viewpoint to Garvey's black nationalism and Booker T. Washington's accomodationism, both of which have been widely discredited in recent years. Fairclough concludes these men and their movements were largely positive forces in black history. The book also expands on familiar areas, such as the racism of J. Edgar Hoover, who started his campaign against civil rights as a Bureau of Investigation agent assigned to investigate Garvey in 1919---more than 40 years before he began his dogged pursuit of Dr. King.

Better Day Coming is an excellent book for a reader who doesn't know much about the subject matter, and it provides details and fresh perspectives to those readers who study or were involved with the civil rights campaign. Despite its flaws, this is a solid account of one of the most important movements in American history.