People would wonder as why, me, as a girl of 15 would be reading a book about War. I love reading the war stories, and watching the war films as much as i love reading and watching horse things. Although I have a planned career in the Olympics with my horse, i've thought in the past few years, that if i weren't intersted in horses, i would go into the Air Force. My brother is obsessed with World War II, and I must admit it grew on me! Douglas Bader is an amazing man, with great courage and determination. Paul Brickhill wrote Reach for the Sky really well. Some of my favourite parts are (from the 1954 book)

"242 Squadron were changing their aeroplanes, becoming the second squadron to get Hurricane Mark II's, which were faster, had more power, and the new and better VHF raido. Now in the routine of unexiting readiness, Bader sometimes swashbuckled about, jabbing his thumb nosalgically on an imaginary gun button, with an accompanying 'rasberry' to signify the rattling guns" I just found that hilarious.

Another of my favourites is:
"Once in mid- Channel on the way out a new boy in 145 called: 'Hallo, Red Leader. Yellow Two calling. I can't turn my oxygen on.' A brooding silence followed, The voice plaintivley again: 'Hallo, Red Leader. Can you hear me? I can't turn on my oxygen."
Then Turner's Canadian voice, ferociously sarcastic: "What the hell d'you want me to do? Get out and turn it on for you? Go home!' No one made that mistake again."
You have to feel sorry for the boy, but Turner was funny!

Douglas Bader was someone who will never give up. He'll just keep on trying, and trying, and trying, until he gets it. He's a man of great wisdom, and should be greatly remembered through out history.

Douglas Bader was in the peacetime RAF but lost both legs in a crash. After a miserable few years on civvie street, the war came along and he volunteered. Not only was he accepted, with two prosthetic legs and several years older than most of "the Few", but the RAF returned him to fighter-plane duty. He became a leading ace until he was shot down, and then he became such a pain to the Germans that they had to take his legs away from him to stop him from escaping.

You may remember Brickhill as the author of The Great Escape. This is another spellbinding yarn. Note however that it is more of an inspirational story than a serious biography. In the days when youngsters were more literate than they are today, it would have been called a "boy's book."

My son-in-law (who is English) gave an earlier version of this book to me for a Christmas present. He had to search all the used-book websites to find it. I'm delighted (and so is he) that it's available again. Bluejacket Books are distributed in the U.S. by Naval Institute Press, so I'm sure that this is an excellent production and not a cheap reprint.

Give it to the "boy" on your list, whether he's eight or eighty.

Unlike some of the popular works on Reagan, which are all too often uncritically fawning (Peggy Noonan, Dinesh D'Souza) or overly polemical and extremely critical (Haynes Johnson), Paul Boyer's collection of speeches, articles and essays presents a wonderfully balanced and fair look at Reagan. An excellent text.

*Reagan As President* is one of the few works about Ronald Reagan that is written without bias. Though the book is a collection of close to 100 articles and essays that were written by various propents and opponents of the Reagan Presidency, its purpose is to compare different thoughts and ideas. In the beginning of each section, Paul Boyer gives a brief history on the covered topic and then allows the writers to present their views. At the time of the book's publication, Boyer was Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin and a senior member of the Institute for the Research in the Humanities at the school. His work is written in a scholarly manner and will undoubtedly be used as a reference for historians in the years to come. Though not written in a chronological manner, *Reagan As President* begins with Boyer's recount of the 1980 campaign and election, which is followed by the president-elect's acceptance speech at the Republican National Con! vention and Reagan's first innaugural address. The book then covers articles critiquing the Reagan Era, to include the president's persona, his second election victory, economic and tax policies, welfare and the poor, national defense, the Iran-Contra Scandal, Central America and Reagan's relationship and attitudes toward the Soviet Union. For the student of the Reagan Presidency, Paul Boyer's work will eliminate hours of research. Key issues are presented by reprints of various leading journalists and writers of many different newspapers and other media. For the interested reader, *Reagan as President* provides an exellent comprehensive one-stop reading.

If you have been longing to finally learn from the scriptures "how" to SPEAK IN TONGUES then this is the book for you. The author simply lays out common fears and how to overcome them with comfort from the Bible.

If you want to escape religion/tradition and want zero in on serious biblical research regarding the receiving of the holy spirit, then this is the book. If you are hungry for "how" to receive, but never could or if you just want clarification on the subject, then the wait for a copy is well worth the time!

This book is very inspirational and spiritual. It is very meditative and relaxing. I just ordered one as a gift for a friend's birthday. That is all I will say.

For anyone seeking the answer to, "Why am I here?" this is one of the world's best books, ranking right up there with "The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha." It is a short lesson about why and who each of us is what we are. I congratulate Paul Williams for his concise thoughts and perfect understanding.

This is a ground breaking work that brings our contemporary economics into focus in the Mission work of the Apostle Paul. It also challenges simple capitalism and calls for a higher Christian econmics.

This work does in fact look at the communities which existed in the Jesus era which self described themselves as the poor, as well as the righteous. The book briefly glances at the Qumran community and almost automatically excludes it from and differentiates it from the Jesus community of the poor. The book also briefly looks at the ethnic divisions in the Jesus community i.e. the Jewish and Greek split which allowed for the stoning of Stephan and the immunity of Peter/James the Just et al to continue their ministries in the Temple and in Jerusalem.

Dr. Georgi wonders why the Galileans; Peter and the twelve are drawn back to Jerusalem to continue the ministry of Jesus movement. His answer is that they were filled with Eschatological enthusiasms.

Christians not living a life within the academic realm might say that Peter and the twelve were empowered by the Holy Spirit and inspired by the great commission to specifically follow that strategy: "first Judea, then Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth..."

I find this book much more satisfying than the recent work entitled; "James, the brother of Jesus." Dr. Georgi shows more respect for the witness of the canonical text. The writer of the book on James has an elaborate hermanuetic which essentially turns the text on its head and turns it inside out; and says that black is white.

The writer on James the brother of Jesus does raise some interesting questions regarding the movement of the Hasidim; which while supporting Temple Worship in theory were opposed to the pollution of the Temple by the Sanhedrin/Roman ruling clique. Jesus cleansing of the Temple would seem to fall into a Hasidim (purifying) action. Or its opposite since he called for better access to the Court of the Gentiles. These are perplexing issues ! and we look for further research and writing from Dr. Georgi

Professor Georgi brings a wide range of knowledge to this work. Initially I have focused on his essay; "Is There Justification in Money?" He describes the economy and culture of the Hellenistic/Roman world. He also illuminates Temples and religion in the Hellenistic world as economic institutions equivalent to our banks and escrow offices and court houses for registering property transactions and loan documents and receiving fees for these transactions.

Dr. Georgi includes analysis of economy from Aristotle to John Maynard Keynes. He astutely differentiates Paul's relation to money, which is to build up the 'poor', from the normative Hellenistic relationship to money of his day, which is to generate profit/interest for the power structure.

The question which I would like to ask my former Professor. Who are the poor of Jerusalem in the Jesus movement? Could not the whole Jesus movement be the poor? The nabim? When Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler did he not say, sell everything you own and give it to the poor? Did Jesus mean some abstract faceless collection of the poor? Or were the poor and the Jesus movement the same thing? This fits with the communal vision of the Church which we also see in Acts. When we take our line of thinking in this direction we are then confronted with the Essene community on the shores of the Dead Sea. How is this communal community the same or different than the Jesus movement? The other clear motiff in the New Testament is the anti-temple rhetoric of the Jesus movement; seen clearly in the oration of Stephen prior to his execution, and by Jesus' attack on the Court of the Gentiles on the Temple grounds in Jerusalem. This theme also needs more examination. Is Paul reflecting a new economy which benfits the common community of faith rather than generating interest/profit for the owners and controllers of capital? Does the Temple represent both capital and the Roman occupation in colusion? Is the Jesus movement opposing the temple capital structure, in a revolutionary way?

This book is great reading! I appreciate the footnotes being in back of the text. Dr. Georgi has arrived at a place in his career where he is able to communicate bold original thinking about large social issues, rather than merely thinking about Greek grammatical structure which dominates too much New Testament scholarship.

Paul Guest writes stark, knifelike poems. Each one is a perfect, shivering cataclysm. Guest's understated voice is a monologue of unraveling, the effect culminating until you're left laughing giddily in a kind of shock. This collection reads sort of like a 94-page "The Second Coming". I think it's great.

This book should be taken with you or taken up after the reader--no doubt enraptured in awe and swept-off--dropped it. These poems are pathos gift-wrapped in the comic and the human. The book has authority, the heft and agility rarely encountered in first books. These poems are beautiful in the way that "Great Poetry" can be beautiful but they are spoken in a voice so natural, so conversational that their beauty seems organic to them: that daffodil that opens early and braves frost and seems to stand not so much for the pretty-flowers-of-early-spring-and-The-Poet-behind-lace-curtains-billowing(& bellowing)-out-of "daffodil poetry" but to stand sturdy and against ice and bitterness in a gravel parking lot of a world and in so doing surprises even itself by its ability to perservere. These poems are about brokeness and bodies and the way bodies break and refuse to break. They are beauty unaware of their own beauty, aware only of a world in need of saving graces and madcap comics, of failed scripts for the three stooges. They are poems of awareness, unflinching in their measure of pain and bliss, their acknowledgement that to be human is to arrive with the potential and promise of erosion. For that awareness of what is offered and what cannot always be accepted, there is this voice, this rapturous debut and this poetry which is, (read this book and see for yourself) no small wonder.

Sylvester Coddmyer III was a pretty nice kid who grew up in a nice family. He was an only child at the age of 12. In the past year Sylvester had an almost perfect homerun season, he had Mr. baruth's coaching tips to help him get through. The next year came along and there was no Mr. Barthum to help him out. He started out as a bench warmer, if he ever got to play it would just be for an inning or so. One day on the way home from practice a man named Cheeko said do you want me to help you out a little. Sylvester said sure, they practiced about 4 times aweek and befor you know it Sylvester is back hitting homeruns. Inside Sylvester really wondered who this Cheeko guy was anyway.

Last season, Sylvester Codmyre III hit home runs every time but once, when he was up. But in his second season, again he started out slumping. Then he started hitting them back into home runs and he started being good at defense again. It is a good book because it's the second version but Sylvester has a different helper.

"This book--scrutinizing key assumptions that routinely precede and preempt thought about political power--is a notable challenge....A work of ingenuity and unsettling realism....A book of political inquiry that is profoundly serious....Could serve as an important tool for unearthing the realities of present-day repression and laying a solid foundation for democratic life." --Norman Solomon, author and nationally syndicated columnist

"...A remarkable achievement, beautifully crafted and very hard-hitting. It is that rarity--a political science book that really is political. Goldstene throws down the gauntlet. His new book could--and it should--change the way we think and act politically." --Paul Thomas, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

"A radical reminder of the value of memory...altogether splendid: incisive, evocative and notable for the elegance of Goldstene's vision of science." --Wilson Carey McWilliams, Department of Political Science, Rutgers University

"[Goldstene] is excellent at connecting...events and ideas to the wider frame of Western thought...a stimulating intellect." --Terrell Carver, Department of Politics, University of Bristol, UK

"A very fine piece of work...beautifully written and organized....It is time Goldstene was recognized for what he is: a leading social critic and an original political thinker." --Rick Tilman, Department of Public Administration, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

"...Should be an excellent supplement for most basic and advanced political science classes at the college level." --William Head, Chief, Office of History, USAF

"...Well-written, lucid, incisive and convincing. Goldstene's work makes a significant contribution to the theoretical understanding of revolution. Those across the social sciences who have an interest in revolution, social movements, social change, power and politics will find this work valuable." --James P. Marshall, Social Science Journal

A penetrating analysis of the essential foundations of power in the United States and their pivotal influence on the revolutionary politics of the 1960s. Focusing on the disruptive battle between the ideological impulses of democracy and liberalism, and the crucially different opportunities for human development each affords, the book also takes the reader into twenty-first century America in a cogent and stimulating manner. This volume is a creative and major contribution to theory-as radical as it is intense-as political as it is theoretical. It is a work full of hope, perceiving egalitarian possibilities within what is conceived as an ongoing process of American revolution: a process that can no longer be concealed within the commercial elitism of a dominant liberal world view. This is a development that first found its public voice in the sixties and continues in more muted form today. Here is a must read for those disturbed by a corporatist oppression but who can't identify the fundamental causes of this condition or viable alternatives to it. Extremely well written, the work has the added advantage of being quite brief. The style, moreover, allows for a subtlety of argument that makes the reader think more deeply about the texture of the operative political culture. In the final analysis, this is a book as powerful as the forces it examines, an impressive and novel contribution to American political thought that creates a fundamentally new theory of revolution, and must be recognized for the classic it can become. It is a volume that makes it clear that while reality might be ignored, it cannot be stopped. Highly recommended for anyone seriously concerned about the world they live in and who might appreciate a work that is refreshingly scientific in method and litery in expression.

This is another one of the American Girls Short Stories series about Josefina Montoya, a nine-year-old girl living in the New Mexico of 1824. In this book, when the family goes searching for pine nuts, Josefina's father offers a reward for the one who gathers the most, and Josefina can't wait to collect the most and impress her aunt Dolores. But, when she is ordered to stay at camp and watch her nephews, Josefina is crushed. She refuses to give in though, and seeks a way to do both what she is told, and what she wants to do!

The final chapter of this book looks at rancho life in 1824, and gives directions for making a pastel (a spicy pie that includes pine nuts). As always, Jean-Paul Tibbles has produced some excellent illustrations that add a great deal to this already excellent book. My daughter and I both highly enjoyed this book, and we recommend it to you.

"A Reward for Josefina" is the first Josefina short story that was published. It is set in the Fall shortly after Tia Dolores's arrival to Josefina's family, possibly putting it shortly before or during the time period in "Josefina Learns a Lesson". Tia Dolores is a new adult in the family, and Josefina desparately wants her to think of Josefina as being special. The family and their hired hands go out to gather pinon nuts (pine nuts from a Pinon tree), and as a motivator, a reward is offered to the one who gathers the most. Josefina hopes it will be her, until she is left behind to tend to her oldest sister's two young sons. Josefina and her three year old nephew, Juan, find a way to gather the biggest treasure of nuts without leaving their camp site. Somehow, the reward, a cone of sugar, has run off with a squirrel (in exchange for the nuts?), but Josefina finds the reward that she is looking for.

This book is beautifully written. A young woman being trained as a mystic. So many things rang true for me, as it felt more like history than fiction. The same spiritual truths can certainly be applied to this day and age. I felt so connected to Rhiannon because I was walking down a similar spiritual path as she all the while I was reading the book. I like to call myself a Rhiannon in process. I can't wait for the sequel!

This book is loaded with accurate spiritual information.

It is also great fun to read and uplifting with warmth, wisdom and kindness.

Susi Roos walks the walk. Her words are well worth listening to.

RP