This is the most thoughtful and honest approach to Job that I have encountered. A must for the serious student of theology.

Boomboom, by Joseph Ferone, combines suspense and mystery with the author's unique blend of laugh-out-loud humor, puns and hysterical malapropisms. I can't wait to read it again. I hope I never meet Iris in a bar or anywhere, but I hope I do read plenty more by Mr. Ferone! His characters are straight out of the shadows and yet as clear and knowable as can be. For a gritty, funny, puzzle of a book read Boomboom. You won't guess what happens, but you'll think about it long after you finish.

Most every researcher and writer on this period has made great use of the State Department Consular and Diplomatic files in the National Archives and other foreign based collections. This makes great sense as the majority of them are literate in English first and Spanish second. It also makes sense because a Mexican reporting to a Mexican does not have to explain "Mexicanness" or things peculiar to his culture. Reporters and travelers for centuries have been doing the comparative bit. That is why people read travel books, to gain insight. The second reason for emphasis on "Yanqui" sources has been access. Many of the participants in the revolution lived very long lives and the political and personal animosities of the time lasted for some forty years after. It was their history, and they were sensitive about Anglos poking around in it. It was not until the 1960s that Pancho Villa himself was officially recognized as a hero of the Revolution, but even then, due to sensitivities, an equestrian statue erected in Chihuahua, and based on a photograph of him, had the features deliberately distorted by the sculptor so as not to be a likeness even though everyone knew the sculpture was in memory of Villa. I understand the files of the Mexican Ministry of Defense have yet to be opened to anyone for research. Fortunately that is not an insurmountable problem as many of the survivors who came out on top kept extensive personal archives. And so many of the dispatches, orders, and reports can be found in them. This is exactly what the author has been able to do. By making use of all the civil and personal archives that he could get to, he has constructed a Mexican view of the events of the time covered. In so doing he has set out to disprove a great misconception held by both the US government and the public that the Carranzista Army forces were not cooperative (which was true) but that they either were complicit or active conspirators in helping hide Villa from Pershing's Punitive Expedition. The author has satisfactorily proven that the latter hypothesis is false. The Carranzistas constantly fought major and minor battles with Villistas but were hampered by a loose system of command, a sometime lack of supplies, and the necessity of garrisoning various towns, thus exposing themselves to the same conditions of vulnerability to surprise attack as the inhabitants of Columbus, NM, had been in. The only major time that Villa was close to capture during this time was after a battle with Carranzistas in which he was greviously wounded in the leg and was an invalid for some months. What has obscured the Carranzista effort has been the unfortunate clash at Carrizal between a detachment of the Tenth Cavalry and the Carranzista garrison which occurred when the US commander insisted on passing through the town to the east in defiance of First Chief Carranza's dictum that the only direction US forces could go was north. The clash ended in the rout of the Tenth's troopers and the death of the Mexican and US commanders. War almost resulted but cooler heads realized that occupation and invasion of all Mexico in pursuit of a band of dispersed raiders was not only ridiculous but unattainable. So the author has done a great service in mining the Mexican records, and tied them together with a general narrative that sets the scene for the detailed story of the period. In addition, he writes with a commendable clarity and preciseness that is often lacking in scholarly works.

An exciting episode of American history with plenty of action. This book is about the violent settling of the frontier in the westward movement. As a boy, reading this book, I was right there with them.

My goodness - don't be put off by the title. This is a swell book about swells! I have read this volume many times and have given it away as a gift too. Hundreds of humorous anecdotes about "Boston Brahmins" and the nouveau riche who invaded their watering holes. They were NOT amused - but, I was! I loved reading about the myopic brothers who founded the Myopia Hunt, the Sears heiress who used wandering tourists for target practise, the Booth Brothers (as in John Wilkes) summer haunts, and more. Very entertaining, very tongue in cheek. Great beach reading.

Bruchac's smooth yet distinctive reading voice, his excellent "animal" character voices, a sprinkling of songs, drumming, and rattles, and vivid stories make this a favorite of an almost 4 year old AND his 40-year-old mom -- especially the title story, which is moving without being sentimental. A very minor quibble is that Bruchac's voice occasionally "catches" as if he's stopping for breath at a line break. P.S. We liked this tape much better than the Navaho one in the series

Reading this book is like taking a long, leisurely walk alongside a man of remarkable intelligence who never flaunts what he knows or boasts about his sensitivity. Yet his poems are intimate, candid, involving, and easy to understand without ever simplifying the complexities and perplexities of a life lived with eyes wide open. Some of the poems -- "Caitlin," for example, and "Intensive Care" -- are shadowed by death and mortal illness, but Featherstone does what only the best of poets can do: he shapes experience so that its container is beautiful and subtle, and that, instead of being depressing, is a form of exaltation.

I realy like this book I bought it for me and my freind who is a crazy brandy fan she said she loved it and i agree.I like Brandy too I realy recomend this book to everyvbody who loves Brandy and those don't you should realy get this book GET IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!

The message of hope conveyed by the sensitive ethnic illustrations make this work poignant not only to the members of the American Indian culture but also to readers of many ethnic backgrounds. While the colors and tones strike an immediate association with the unique southwestern colors of that landscape, the universal message delivers an identifiable sentiment to persons from many cultures. The symbolism depicted within the illustrations provoke thought even to the young reader and questioning of one's own culture's use of symbols. Parallels are then easier to make about similar symbols in a particular culture. Although unfamiliar with the Peoples Series, marketing of this kind of work to early readers can only enhance the integration and feelings of universality that are so sorely needed in our youth's literature.

When informed of his sister Aggie's emotional collapse following a tragic fire that had caused the demise of thirty eighth-graders at the school where she was Sister Superior, Phillip 'Peppy' Manrahan was faced with a Heinz dilemma. Aggie, a nun who went by the religious name of Sister Mary Rachel, needed electroconvulsive shock therapy in order to cure her of screaming fits and grief-induced psychosis. Because Phillip held a long-simmering rage and resentment over the lack of respect that his corporation's superiors had shown him, he decided to use his expertise as an accountant to embezzle company funds to pay for Aggie's treatment. His thievery didn't stop there. He continued to cook the company books as a way to endow the Order of the Sisters of the Annunciation with funds for a new wing of the college library and much-needed repairs for their schools, convents, and Motherhouse - more than one million dollars in all. The Order had graciously accepted these donations from their anonymous benefactor, not knowing that he was a thief and Sister Rachel's younger brother. Later, when Phillip heard about the cancellation of an office colleague's health insurance because he had AIDS, Phillip's rage at the company resurfaced, and he resorted to embezzlement again to help Jack. After Jack's death, Phillip was caught for stealing the twenty-three thousand dollars that he had given Jack and was sentenced to prison for four years.

There, Phillip, a handsome gay man in his fifties, became the protector of another inmate, Talford Starbuck, a younger man with a hideous disfigurement. At first, their hooking up was only a sham, designed to protect the fragile Starbuck from other inmates. As time went by, they fell in love. Then, a terrible chain of events caused several deaths and brought about Phillip's condemnation to death row, sentenced to die in the electric chair. At the same time that Phillip was doing his prison time, Sister Rachel was tending to her dying Mother General in an old mansion in an unnamed location. After Mother's death, the remaining half-dozen sisters in this moribund Order would be scattered to new assignments, and the Motherhouse would be bulldozed.

In alternating passages, the reader is swept along from prison to convent and back again, with intricate flashbacks and recalled memories that serve to provide insights and clues to the characters' motivations and situations. The narrative structure resembles a fugue, with themes stated and restated, then varied, then counterpointed. One overarching theme in the novel is taken from Scripture, from Saint Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, where he exhorts them to abide by what was known later as the Enchiridion and reminds them of what the Church would later call the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (or charity, depending on the translation). 'If I have not charity' is the responsorial thread that is woven through the narrative. A second overarching theme is the 'Magnificat' from the gospel of Luke, which is Mary's response to the Annunciation: 'My soul gives glory to the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.' A third overarching theme is the Last Supper.

The title of the novel, 'Bread for the Baker's Child' is echoed in its epigraph: 'No one is worse shod than the shoemaker's child' and is repeated throughout in its gentle insistence on charity. The novel portrays many acts of charity. Sister Rachel made two bereavement calls: one to Mrs. Levy, the mother of one of the children who burned to death in the school fire, and the other to the mother of the murdered prison guard, (which reminded me of the visits that Sister Helen Prejean, the author of 'Dead Man Walking,' has made to the bereaved families of the men that she had counseled on Death Row). At the most intense part of the novel, Aggie and Peppy prayed together for those who had died.

Not since reading Mark Salzman's 'Lying Awake,' have I come across such a realistic portrayal of nuns, as is found in the characters of Mother General and Sister Rachel. All romantic and idealistic notions of religious life are brushed aside to show these two wonderful flawed human beings who also happen to be nuns. In the character of Phillip, one finds a gay man who has turned away from the Church because he could not be accepted there. Intense irony is present in the prison scenes with a priest who is too tired to tend his flock and a nun who wants to be there but is not allowed because she's not a member of the clergy.

'Bread for a Baker's Child' by Joseph Caldwell is a short novel that one might read from different perspectives. From one point of view, 'Bread' is a Catholic novel that examines the conscience of contemporary Catholicism; from another, it is a morality tale of sin and salvation; further, it is a Dostoyevskian narrative of crime and punishment; moreover, it is a story of redemptive suffering; and finally, one might find here an articulation of the mystical union between God, and a brother and sister, whose souls and destinies are forever entwined. Still, I do not exhaust the possibilities of meaning that one might find here, for to do so would require much rereading and reflection. Mr. Caldwell has been away from the literary scene for ten years, and, with this amazing book, he has returned.