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Book reviews for "Bradford,_John" sorted by average review score:

Putting Out of Your Mind
Published in Digital by Simon & Schuster ()
Authors: Bob Rotella, Robert J. Rotella, and Bradford John Faxon
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About Time
So simple....gives good practice drills and backs up recommendations with real data...a must read!! Doesnt try to change anything about your technique just improves what you have.

Perfect for those who think "I can't putt worth..."
This book was great. Rotella guides you right off that path you've been walking that's called the mental approach to putting. One of the biggest things you should learn from this book is that you won't make every putt you look at. What's more, is that Rotella tells you why you won't make every putt and then goes on to show you how you can think that you're a great putter even though you're not sinking every putt. Read this book carefully, once your putting improves your whole game will because you won't put pressure on yourself to hit everything close.

Buy this book now!!!!

Putt for Dough with this Mental Aide
Dr. Bob aides putters with not expecting to hole every putt, but to make each and every putt have the great chance of dropping.

From routine to feel to rhythm to confidence, Rotella provides in this good read the mental expertise he has demonstrated in his work with golfing greats. Now, it's here for all golfers.

I find to listen to the tape on the way to the course helps prepare me for a great day of putting.


John Henry
Published in Textbook Binding by Telegraph Books (May, 1986)
Author: Roark Bradford
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American Tall-Tale in Ebonics
I first read this book as a child, and have re-read it many times as an adult. It is the story of a larger-than-life hero which appears to take place in the late 19th century. In Bradford's "John Henry", the traditional "steel-drivin'" man is a steamboat roustabout who goes up and down the Mississippi, from town to town, job to job, woman to woman. A lively cast of characters, including Stagger Lee, Poor Selma, and a character who pops up in odd places, referred to only as "a nigger named Sam" make this a very amusing story, and a great read for any age. An imaginative film producer (Spike Lee, perhaps?) could make a fortune from a movie version. John Henry's run-ins with women, bosses, liquor, cocaine, bad guys, gambling, and the law roll off him like water off a duck's back. A true superhero, his demise eventually comes in an unexpected way. I won't ruin the end--if you find this book, it's a must-read.

Great American Tall-Tale in Ebonics
I first read this book as a child, and have re-read it many times as an adult. It is the story of a larger-than-life hero which appears to take place in the late 19th century. In Bradford's "John Henry", the traditional "steel-drivin'" man is a steamboat roustabout who goes up and down the Mississippi, from town to town, job to job, woman to woman. A lively cast of characters, including Stagger Lee, Poor Selma, and a character who pops up in odd places, referred to only as "a nigger named Sam" make this a very amusing story, and a great read for any age. An imaginative film producer (Spike Lee, perhaps?) could make a fortune from a movie version. John Henry's run-ins with women, bosses, liquor, cocaine, bad guys, gambling, and the law roll off him like water off a duck's back. A true superhero, his demise eventually comes in an unexpected way. I won't ruin the end--if you find this book, it's a must-read.


Everything's Coming Up Fractions
Published in Paperback by Pearson Learning (February, 1997)
Author: John Bradford
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Painless fractions
The first time I used this book was in a classroom of 6th - 8th grade students. Their math abilities ranged from 1st to 7th grade as did their reading abilities. Out of 15 students, one found the work difficult. For the rest, this book made learning fractions painless! Each child went at his/her own rate and one child managed to finish the book in two weeks (making me wish I had just as good materials in other topics!) I LOVE this book. After coming home to teach my own children, I made sure to add it to our home library AND to the library I manage for a group of homeschoolers. I can't imagine teaching fractions any other way.
You'll need a box of cuisenaire rods. You can use the c-rods to teach multiplication, division, subtraction, addition, area, perimeter, measurement, and even algebra so buying a box is well worth it.
Each step for learning fractions is broken down in manageable (and rememberable) segments. After each segment is a fun puzzle that the teacher can use to make sure the concept was understood (a test that doesn't look like a test.) The kids love the puzzles and love using the rods. Why use any other system?


General, Organic and Biological Chemistry (Saunders Golden Sunburst Series)
Published in Hardcover by Harcourt Brace College Publishers (January, 1993)
Authors: John R. Amend, Bradford P. Mundy, and Melvin T. Armold
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Excellent
I hated chemistry in Highschool and College. Later, when I needed to learn more about this subject this is the book I picked. Simply put, the best text on Chemistry I have ever seen, have read it twice and constantly refer to it!


John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (Bluejacket Books)
Published in Paperback by United States Naval Inst. (October, 1999)
Authors: Samuel Eliot Morison and James C. Bradford
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A Great Sailor, If Not A Great Man
It has been said that most great men are bad men. Samuel Eliot Morison's superb biography of John Paul Jones supports, if not proves, that proposition. Jones's greatness is undeniable: Although he was the son of an obscure Scottish gardener, he virtually founded the United States Navy, he won one of the most important sea battles of the Revolutionary War when he was only 32, and he later commanded ships in the service of France and Russia. But Jones also was extremely temperamental, excessively vain (after receiving an honor from France, he liked to be addressed as "Chevalier Paul Jones"), and he had mistresses in practically every port. Morison, a longtime professor at Harvard and the author of the authoritative, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Christopher Columbus, as well as a massive, multi-volume history of the U.S. Navy during World War II, reports all of this in a matter-of-fact fashion. Morison's Jones is a great sailor and a man of the world in every respect.

According to Morison, Young Jones was highly ambitious and went to sea at age 13 "as a road to distinction." During the next 15 years, he learned well his trade and he also became an American patriot. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Morison writes that the American navy was "only a haphazard collection of converted merchant ships," and the Royal Navy was probably the most powerful in history. But General George Washington, according to Morison, "had a keen appreciation of the value and capabilities of sea power," and, in October 1775, Congress appointed a Naval Committee of Seven to manage the colonies' maritime affairs. In December 1775, seven months before the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain, Jones accepted a commission as a lieutenant in the continental navy.

Although Morison is primarily interested in Jones's activities during the Revolutionary War, he makes a number of more generally cogent observations. For instance, the United States government was in a state of nearly constant impecuniousness and was able to afford to build only one of the largest class of naval vessels, a ship of the line, during the conflict. In Morison's view, this was the status of the war at the time of the battle off Flamborough Head in September 1779, which secured Jones's fame: "The War of Independence had reached a strategic deadlock, a situation that recurred in both World Wars of the twentieth century. Each party, unable to reach a decision by fleet action or pitched land battles, resorts to raids and haphazard, desultory operations which have no military effect." That deadlock continued, according to Morison, until 1781. Morison also writes that Britain took the position "since the United States were not a recognized government but a group of rebellious provinces,...American armed ships were no better than pirates."

Morison appears to be deeply impressed by Jones's technical competence: "One of Paul Jones's praiseworthy traits was his constant desire to improve his professional knowledge." That passion for self-improvement reached fruition September 1779 off the Yorkshire coast of east-central England when a squadron which Jones commanded from the Bonhomme Richard defeated the H.M.S. Serapis in a three and one-half hour battle during which those ships were locked in what Morison describes as a "deadly embrace." (Bonhomme Richard sank during the aftermath of the fierce fighting.) It was during this battle that Jones defiantly refused to surrender with the immortal phrase: "I have not yet begun to fight." According to Morison, "[c]asualties were heavy for an eighteenth-century naval battle. Jones estimated his loss at 150 killed and wounded out of a total of 322." Morison writes that Jones was at his "pinnacle of fame" in late 1779, and, when he visited France, which was allied with the U.S. during the Revolutionary War, in April 1780: He became the lion of Paris, honored by everyone from the King down." When Jones returned to the United States in 1781, however, he was unable to obtain what Morison describes as a "suitable command," and he never fought again under the American flag. In 1788 and 1789, as "Kontradmiral Pavel Ivanovich Jones" he swerved in the navy of Catherine II, "the Great," Empress of Russia. When he died in 1792, he was buried in France, but, in 1905, his body was returned to the United States and now rests in the chapel of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Jones's nasty temper is frequently on display. Morison remarks on various occasions that his crews were "disobedient," "sullen," and "surly." Which was cause and which was effect is difficult to ascertain. Jones clearly was an overbearing commander, which may explain, though does not excuse, his crews' bad attitudes. On one occasion Jones had one of his officers "placed under arrest for insubordination [giving the officer] a chance to clear it up, and Jones was unwilling to admit his error." It is not prudent to compare events during war in the late 18th century to the peace and prosperity of our own time, but no reader of this book will be impressed by Jones's interpersonal skills.

Morison makes numerous references to "prize money," the curious, but apparently then-universal, practice of rewarding captains and their crews in cash for capturing enemy ships. The fact that Jones pursued prize money with vigor may raise additional doubts about his character, but I would guess Morison believed that Jones simply followed a custom which probably motivated many successful naval captains of his time.

Morison held the rank of admiral in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Although the degree of detail in his narrative is fascinating, I found some passages too technical, and I suspect some other lay readers may be baffled as well. (The book's charts and diagrams were, however, very helpful.) But that is a small price to pay for a wonderful biography of one of the most intriguing figures of the American Revolution.

John Paul Jones: a literate biography with blemishes and all
A hero of my youth, this book appears to tell the full story. This is a scolarly work which reads easily. I only wish I would have read this book in my twenties. There are some wonderful life lessons in this biography. If you read it you will learn his flaws, his good and fine attributes, and some mysteries. This is first-rate biography and detective work by the author. I recommend it.

A perfect biography, a fitting tribute!
As someone who had recently seen the "John Paul Jones" movie that was made in 1959 with Robert Stack, I was curious to learn more about the man who put the U.S. Navy on the map. Of course, most know him as the one who coined the immortal, defiant phrase "I have not yet begun to fight!" This book delves beyond that, as Morison shows Jones as he really was, a human being born in obscurity in Scotland who developed a love for the sea at an early age. He was simultaneously a shrewd combatant with a quick temper (in many ways the American equivalent of the great English admiral Nelson,) and a gentleman who enjoyed the company of numerous lovely ladies ashore. Morison leaves no stone unturned as he takes the reader on a detailed, captivating journey (from page one, the reader is hooked.) He sailed the waters that bore witness to Jones's battles and drew extensively upon the naval archives of the four primary countries that figured in Jones's life. To give you some idea, the engagement with H.M.S. Serapis is fleshed out in such marvelous detail that one can almost smell the gunpowder, but Morison goes beyond that, explaining what happened before, during, and after, most of which one would not learn in history class. In fact, I would make book that at least ninety percent of what one will read in this book would not be learned in history class. Morison has included pictures, charts, diagrams, excerpts from letters (some of which are in French with English translations), and has deftly blended them and the text into a perfect biography. For anyone who wants to learn more about Jones, this is required reading.


Moe's Textbook of Scoliosis and Other Spinal Deformities
Published in Hardcover by W B Saunders (15 January, 1995)
Authors: John E. Lonstein, David S. Bradford, Robert B. Winter, and James Ogilvie
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Great textbook but probably hard for patients to understand
This is a great reference text with very detailed papers on spinal deformities. However, the spinal deformity patient or parent is not likely to find it of much use in researching their condition.

It's a very good book about scoliosis.
I am from Brazil and I spend six months in Minneapolis, were I learn all about spine and scoliosis. Well, this is a world famous book about this matter. The style is very easy and everybody will learn easily. I really recomend this lecture. The book have many pictures and x-rays too, and show the moderns treatments of scoliosis, a big problem if not discovered early


Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your Short Game
Published in Paperback by Alpha Books (24 March, 2000)
Authors: Jim McLean, Jody P. Schaeffer, and Bradford John Faxon
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Solid
A very solid book on all aspects of the short game by one of the top rated PGA instructors. Includes practice routines and drills, equipment needed, course management, grip, distance control, shots for every situation(rough, sand, backspin, chipping, and even a little on putting and much more), as well as a list of golf schools if you REALLY need help. Even lists who and what to watch for when watching golf on TV. I love "Idiot's" books for reference, this one included, for their great indexing and detailed contents pages that let you go directly to a section without reading the whole book if you are looking for an instant solution to one particular problem. I would also recommend Dave Pelz's great book.


Conjunctions: 35, American Poetry: States of the Art
Published in Paperback by Conjunctions (15 August, 2001)
Authors: Bradford Morrow, Jorie Graham, and John Ashbery
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table of contents
An all-poetry anthology, featuring the very best established and up-and-coming contemporary American writers. CONJUNCTIONS:35 American Poetry: States of the Art

FALL, 2000 Edited by Bradford Morrow

Table of contents

John Ashbery, Four Poems

Lyn Hejinian, Two Poems

Myung Mi Kim, Siege Document

Brenda Coultas, Three Poems

Arthur Sze, Quipu

Jorie Graham, Six Poems

Michael Palmer, Three Poems

Mark McMorris, Reef: Shadow of Green

Susan Wheeler, Each's Cot An Altar Then

Ann Lauterbach, Three Poems

Clark Coolidge, Arc of His Slow Demeanors

Gustaf Sobin, Two Poems

Alice Notley, Four Poems

Tessa Rumsey, The Expansion of the Self

Anne Waldman and Andrew Schelling, Two Landscapes

Forrest Gander, Voiced Stops

Tan Lin, Ambient Stylistics

Marjorie Welish, Delight Instruct

Laynie Browne, Roseate, Points of Gold

James Tate, Two Poems

Honor Moore, Four Poems

Leslie Scalapino, From The Tango

Bin Ramke, Gravity & Levity

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Two Poems

Charles Bernstein, Reading Red

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Charles Bernstein, A Dialogue

Rosmarie Waldrop, Five Poems

Martine Bellen, Two Poems

Peter Sacks, Five Poems

Reginald Shepherd, Two Poems

Barbara Guest, Two Poems

Donald Revell, Two Poems for the Seventeenth Century

Paul Hoover, Resemblance

Elaine Equi, Five Poems

Norma Cole, Conjunctions

Jena Osman, Boxing Captions

Ron Silliman, Fubar Clus

John Yau, Three Movie Poems

Melanie Neilson, Two Poems

Robert Kelly, Orion: Opening the Seals

Nathaniel Mackey, Two Poems

C.D. Wright, From One Big Self

Peter Gizzi, Fin Amor

Carol Moldaw, Festina Lente

Charles Norton, Five Poems

Robert Creeley, Supper

Brenda Shaughnessy, Three Poems

Malinda Markham, Four Poems

Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Draft 38: Georgics and Shadow

Nathaniel Tarn, Two Poems

Peter Cole, Proverbial Drawing

Fanny Howe, Splinter

Anne Tardos, Four Plus One K

Robert Tejada, Four Poems

Andrew Mossin, The Forest

Elizabeth Willis, Two Poems

David Shapiro, Two Poems

Camille Guthrie, At the Fountain

Susan Howe, From Preterient

Cole Swensen, Seven Hands

Susan Howe and Cole Swensen, A Dialogue

Keith Waldrop, A Vanity

Will Alexander, Fishing as Impenetrable Stray

Juliana Spahr, Blood Sonnets

Jerome Sala, Two Poems

Leonard Schwartz, Ecstatic Persistence

Catherine Imbriglio, Three Poems

Vincent Katz, Two Poems

Thalia Field, Land at Church City

John Taggart, Not Egypt

Renee Gladman, The Interrogation

Laura Moriarty, Seven Poems

Kevin Young, Film Noir

Jackson Mac Low, Five Stein Poems

Rae Armantrout, Four Poems

Anselm Hollo, Guests of Space


The shield and the sword: the Knights of St John
Published in Unknown Binding by Hodder and Stoughton ()
Author: Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford
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Comprehensive history
From its birth in the first Crusade, through the possession of the isle of Rhodes to its lost of the island against the forces of Suleiman the Magnificent, to making a home on Malta; the great siege of Malta by Suleiman again, Mr Bradford is able to make well researched material interesting. After Malta, the Knights were on top, how they dropped to the bottom as they lost Malta to Napoleon, were they are now in the world as a humanitarian organization.
If you have any interest in this subject, this is a good book. It could have used a few more maps (I read the 1973 hard back version), and three times it seemed the author was taking sides with the Knights on some minor old debate. His book "The Great Siege; Malta 1565" is an excellent book.


The shield and the sword; the Knights of St. John, Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta
Published in Unknown Binding by Dutton ()
Author: Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford
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Charity and pugnacity
If you enjoyed Ernle Bradford's classic, "Great Siege: Malta 1565", I recommend "The Shield and the Sword" (1974) as a supplement. A complete history of the Knights of St. John from the order's founding in Jerusalem to the present, Mr. Bradford's book is impeccably well-written and researched in five languages. And like "Great Siege", it is grippingly told. Not stopping at the siege of Malta, Bradford briefly relates how, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Order evolved into an honorary society for Catholic nobility. Finally, we learn how the Knights -- who still exist and are based on Malta -- became a respected humanitarian organization. More in touch with its original purpose as a hospitaller order, the Knights of St. John now fights indomitably for peace around the globe and even includes women.

I have two quarrels with the book, though. First of all, I would have enjoyed reading more about the daily life of the Knights. As it is, Bradford focuses overwhelmingly on military history. Of more significance, though, Bradford gets too close to his subject...This is a one-sided view...Otherwise, a good read. 4 stars.


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