I expected an objective tale of a prewar life of Polish Jews in Poland. Jewish writer Tuszynska failed in my opinion. She is one of many Polish Jews who when discovered their roots try to make a living writing about Jewish subjects. Some are better than others, some worst. Tuszynska's great knowledge of Singer is unquestionable but her observations reflect deep anti-Polonizm. Maybe if she tries harder in a future she can create a masterpiece. One star for Tuszynska's book for picking the subject but I believe Singer deserves better.

Agata Tuszynska's book is written with talent, great dedication and sensitivity to tell as much as possible about Singer. The book shows the author's deep honesty in showing Singer as a person the literary world admired. I found it one of the most interestoing books I have read recently.

After reading and enjoying Wandering Stars in its original published version many years ago, I was really looking forward to reading this sequel. However, I found that it did not live up to the promise of its predecessor.

Most of the stories were fantasy, rather than science fiction, and I'm not particularly fond of that genre. It was a definite letdown.

I enjoy science fiction short stories and I enjoy stories with a Jewish view, so this seemed like a perfect collection for me. It was. I found it interesting to see what these different writers, from Woody Allen to Isac Bashevis Singer and Harlan Ellison, came up with for a Jewish sci-fi story. As with any story collection some are better than others. Some basic knowledge of Judaism and Jewish history helps to understand some of the stories.

Strathern's summary of the life of Issac Newton is less than 90 pages of unusually large print -- a very quick read indeed. At best, it is a superficial glance that provides little insight into the life or work of Newton.

In many ways, the book is a contradiction. Strathern's approach is more suited to a children's book, but his writing style is intended for an educated adult. For me, the result was fast-paced boredom.

This book told me several significant points about Issac that I (and most other people) are not aware of. It also inspired me to learn more. It requires a small amount of time to read. For me that is an advantage.

This is a great book for people that avoid fat books which are padded with trivial details that can't be remembered anyway.

This collection of short stories constitutes a perfect illustration of the problem with Asimov: the man wrote millions of words in his life, but many of them weren't worth the effort. I've always enjoyed the Black Widower mystery stories, but in this fifth collection of those stories we learn that Asimov has pretty much run out of good ideas. So he publishes bad ones instead. I've read "Encyclopedia Brown" stories that were based on more clever plot twists than some of the stories in this book.

The Black Widowers meet once a month at the Milano Restaurant (notice that they take the task of host in rotation). Each month the host brings a guest for grilling, beginning with the question 'How do you justify your existence?' and ending with ferreting out some mystery to be solved. The seventh Black Widower - Henry, the waiter - always solves the problem after the other six have cleared the ground a bit. The problem often isn't a crime - just some little puzzle that's been driving the guest crazy. This volume has an unusual number of spy stories, though.

I personally find the by-play between the Black Widowers entertaining in itself. For instance, Rubin can be counted upon to severely libel another writer of his acquaintance, one Isaac Asimov, a few times in every volume. :)

"The Fourth Homonym" - Host: Trumbull. Guest: Nicholas Brant, lawyer. A long-ago client named one of his children to head the family business with his dying breath - but only the word 'to' could be understood.

"Unique Is Where You Find It" - Host: Rubin. Guest: Horace Rubin, Rubin's nephew, a doctoral candidate in chemistry who has been issued a challenge by a hostile member of his committee: "I'm thinking of the name of a unique element."

"The Lucky Piece" - Host: Drake. Guest: Albert Silverstein, novelty store owner. A boy lost his lucky piece in a resort sitting-room - where it vanished into thin air.

"Triple Devil" - Host: Gonzalo. Guest: Benjamin Manfred, self-made man. Manfred had inherited a single book of his choosing from the old man's library, with only an enigmatic phrase as a clue to the correct choice.

"Sunset on the Water" - Host: Avalon. Guest: Chester Dunhill, a historian whose heart's desire is to own _The Historians' History of the World_. Someone has finally answered his advertisement, offering a copy for sale - but Dunhill threw the envelope away, so the only remaining clue to the writer's address is the text of the letter itself.

"Where Is He?" - Host: Halsted. Guest: Bradford Hume, after-dinner speaker. Hume was hired for a taping session - but the cameraman, 'Old Reliable', didn't appear.

"The Old Purse" - Host: Trumbull. Guest: William Teller. Why was his wife's old purse stolen, only for all the contents to be returned anonymously, without the purse itself?

"The Quiet Place" - Host: Rubin. Guest: Theodore Jarvik, Rubin's editor. The only clue Jarvik had to the identity of the man he met at the quiet resort was that he used the nom de guerre 'Dark Horse'.

"The Four-Leaf Clover" - Host: Drake. Guest: Alexander Mountjoy, college president. Several faculty members were taken hostage recently by terrorists, and one of them betrayed a fellow hostage (a spy). The spy left one enigmatic clue to the identity of the traitor...

"The Envelope" - Host: Gonzalo. Guest: Francis MacShannon, one-time collector of postmarks, which once led to his part in the capture of a spy.

"The Alibi" - Host: Avalon. Guest: Leonard Koenig, retired from counterintelligence. How did Koenig find the hole in a traitor's cover story?

"The Recipe" - Host: Halsted. Guest: Myron Dynast. In this locked-room mystery, his wife's blueberry muffin recipe was stolen during the only afternoon when she had it in written form - but she never left the kitchen.

This is a reprint of a book first published in 1935. While it has historical information about Isaac Jogues, it comes packaged in the author's cultural baggage of another era. It is full of derogatory references to the native peoples as "savages," and lacks an appreciation of inculturation. Since Vatican II the Church has forged new directions in missiology and an awareness of culture in evangelization. Speaking to a group of native Americans, the pope himself has stated that "The early encounter between your traditional cultures and the European way of life...was a harsh and painful reality for your peoples. The cultural oppression, the injustices, the disruption of your life and of your traditional societies must be acknowledged..." (Speech in Phoenix, AZ, Sept. 14, 1987) This book presents quite a different picture. The heroism of the martyrs can only be admired. But it is ironic that they themselves practiced a form of inculturation far ahead of their time, and so they would presumably be in the vanguard of the Church's missionary outreach today. Publishing this book now can only do them a disservice, as it does to the native peoples whom they loved enough to give their lives for.

This is a thoroughly researched and enthralling biography of what would have to be one of the most extraordinary lives of all time - the life of a highly educated Jesuit of the 17th century golden age of France, sent as a missionary to the native tribes in the jungles of America. St Isaac Jogues' heroism, holiness, perseverance and indomitable courage, in the midst of the Native Americans, shine out in a well-told story.

I buyed, thinking was a biography and it's not!. It's a story with facts of Rav Kook life writen in a biography way but not a serious one. For a giant like Rav Kook I don't like the way the author describe his life...Rav Kook deserved more.

A good book describing the unique personality of the greatest Jewish thinker of the 20th century-Rabbi AI Kook. Presents stories from Rav Kook's biography in anecdotal form. Good introduction to Rav Kook's biography

I don¡¦t think the author knew much about John Jr. nor did he make a thorough investigation into the death of John Jr. The content of the book is poor and it rather looks like a college essay ¡V begin with a introduction, end with a conclusion, double line spacing and attached with several poor quality, photocopied version of newspapers graphics clippings. It doesn¡¦t even include a single photo of John Jr. But it does have a very detailed specification of the type of plane involved in the crash, which occupied about dozen pages!

Necessity is the result of invention. I realize the author is self-published. But once again his inquistional foresight surpassess the college or high school level perspectives of most ordinary persons. Only professional investigators or detectives know how difficult it is to think objectively or detect foul play when least expected. More fruits or insights to the author in this sometimes difficult job of trying to solve sophisticated crimes. May be other detectives can borrow from his way of thinking when they get stalled in cases.

The short stories herein fall into 3 categories: Black Widower mysteries (15), Union Club mysteries (9), and miscellaneous (7). The Black Widower mysteries are a cross-section of the first 4 Black Widower short story collections, while the Union Club mysteries can be found in _The Union Club Mysteries_.

Many of Asimov's mysteries resemble crossword puzzles, in that they have only one "correct" solution - and have about as much believable characterization, with the exception of some recurring characters when considered over time.

I'll begin with the miscellaneous stories, although they appear last in the book. While some feature recurring characters who have been collected elsewhere, others are one-shot efforts written around a single gimmick for a magazine, and haven't been collected much.

"The Key", the 4th Wendell Urth story, turns on Jennings, a former student of Urth's who as the story opens faces lonely death on the Moon as the price of protecting an alien artifact; Urth afterwards seems the best chance of working out Jennings' only clue to the hiding-place. [The story suffers from dying-clue syndrome: an obscure clue left by a dying man that stumps people with *far* more time to consider it.]

Professor Neddring hands "A Problem of Numbers" to Hal, his graduate student and would-be son-in-law, to hear how Hal's mind works before Neddring will give his blessing. [Come on - an advisor who's known a student long enough for the romantic entanglement to occur ought to know Hal well enough at *this* late date, but passing judgement based on analyzing a *cryptogram*???] The puzzle resembles that used in "Unique Is Where You Find It" in _Puzzles of the Black Widowers_.

Clara and Hester, killing time together on a hot day, agree that it's "The Little Things" they can't stand. In Clara's case, her upstairs neighbour isn't answering her door, and the sound of a dripping faucet is driving Clara to distraction. But Mrs. Maclauren didn't mention any trip to Hester, who normally looks after her plants if she's away...

In "Halloween", an idealist stole some plutonium to prove a point about weak security, then died in a freak accident, leaving only a single dying word to reveal its location.

Two of Asimov's mysteries featuring Larry - a detective's teenage son, a la Encyclopedia Brown - appear. In "The Thirteenth Day of Christmas", there's been a bomb threat against the Soviet delegation to the UN for Christmas Day - but Christmas came and went without incident. In "The Key Word", Larry's father has a _New York Times_ crossword puzzle as a clue on an important case.

"Nothing Might Happen" is the only non-puzzle story in this book, having been written for the non-puzzle-based _Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine_. Sam Gelderman endures life as his quirky author uncle secretary by keeping his future inheritance in mind. True, his uncle might well outlive him, but Sam could *never* hope to pull off a perfect murder.

The Black Widowers stories compensate somewhat for the character development issue. Being based on real-life members of Asimov's own friends in the Trap Door Spiders, the club members' characters over the course of many stories have developed some personality. However, their guests - and the people their guests' problems involve - *do* often suffer from weak/implausible characterization.

"The Obvious Factor", "The Pointing Finger", "Out of Sight", and "Yankee Doodle Went to Town" are 4 of the 12 stories comprising _Tales of the Black Widowers_ - but not the first four, or those most significant to the club members themselves.

"Quicker Than the Eye", "The Three Numbers", and "The One and Only East" appear in _More Tales of the Black Widowers_.

"The Cross of Lorraine", "The Next Day", "What Time Is It?", and "Middle Name" appear in _Casebook of the Black Widowers_.

"Sixty Million Trillion Combinations", "The Good Samaritan", "Can You Prove It?" and "The Redhead" appear in _Banquets of the Black Widowers_. "The Good Samaritan" lets Asimov have a little fun with the Widowers by introducing a female guest to the sacred precincts, while "The Redhead" is based on a dream Asimov had.

Asimov's Union Club stories, like the Black Widower stories, involve several club members who bat around a problem before the resident genius solves the problem. The 9 (out of 30-odd) UC stories selected for this collection were: "He Wasn't There", "Hide and Seek", "Dollars and Cents", "The Sign", "Getting the Combination", "The Library Book", "Never Out of Sight", "The Magic Umbrella", and "The Speck". Again like the BW stories, the UC stories are based around 1-gimmick puzzles; however, I find them less appealing. The UC members don't have the friendly (though argumentative) relationship of the BWs, and Griswold is the antithesis of his gentle BW counterpart, Henry: abrasively arrogant where Henry is self-effacing. Also, there's a sameness to the UC stories: Griswold is *always* the puzzle-setter, reminiscing about long ago issues, so they're not really worked out by reasoning in real-time; the other UC members try and fail to reason out the puzzle, then nag Griswold into revealing the answer.

It's interesting to see the classic plot of drugs, disappearances, cop shops, and action games all thrown in from a Jewish perspective. How does it fit? I dunno. I'm left wondering in the middle of the book, but the feeling is pleasant: I get the goods and enjoy the page-turning.

I collect childrens' books and illustrations, and Stephen Mackey is one of my all-time favorite illustrators. The same sense of mystery and magic that is so at home in his illustrations of fairies adds a particularly special element to his paintings of children and cats. You feel like you're seeing into someone's secret world, even if the events portrayed are mundane, yet you never feel as though you've discovered all of the secrets. As an afficianado of Mackey, I have to say I've been disaapointed in the two major works he's chosen to illustrate -- this book, and the Yolen collection of fairy tales. I think in both cases that the text is not particularly engaging -- too stilted, artificial, and even esoteric for children, but not nuanced or sophisticated enough to be entirely satisfying to adults. Don't buy this book if you want to read a story about cats to a young person; but if you love cats, and if you believe that they know a lot more than we can prove that they know and that they make excellent companions for us, the meager fleshed ones, then I think you might really enjoy sharing the pictures in this book with your child or your over a cup of tea with your feline friend.