That alone is worth the price, but you also get an added bonus. George wrote to many of the musicians for responses to the articles (in 1970, so in some cases it's over 30 years since the article was written). There are many fascinating responses and extra notes from George himself as to what the article meant, what happened to the musician, who married whom, or when George got it wrong.

Nearly 500 pages oozing with the Swing Era. Find it and enjoy.

This handbook has it all. How do you get a 4 year old to throw a ball effectively? Not an easy task for someone with a short attention span an no idea what you are talking about. Swing a bat level? Why bother when you can hack at the ball like a woodsman? Tips, techniques, and pictures either teach a parent what is important, or remind him or her what they have known for so long they have forgetten to pass it along.

These are just a couple of examples of the problems I faced in teaching baseball to my kids and areas the handbook was helpful. From catching, throwing and hitting for the youngest of players, all the way through to strategy, baserunning and conditioning for older players. This book will help you get them started on the right track and help them help themselves when they are old enough to read on their own.

Talk yourself into coaching your kid's team so you can be sure they get quality instruction - only to find that the parents are the ones who drive you to give it up? This handbook can help you lay the groundwork up front that will turn your parents into assets.

I could go on and on. This book may not have everything you will ever need, but it does have something useful about everything. A great read and a great resource.

I definitely recommend this book for one of those cold rainy weekends curled up on the couch.

I am looking forward to diving into my next Thomas Hardy novel, Jude the Obscure.

Far From the Madding Crowd is a pretty simple love story driven by the characters. First, there is Bathsheba Everdeen. She's vain, naive, and she makes the stupidest decisions possible. Yet, you still like her. Then there are the three guys who all want her: Troy who's like the bad guy straight out of a Raphael Sabatini novel, Boldwood who's an old lunatic farmer, and Gabriel Oak who is a simple farmer and is basically perfect. The reader sees what should happen in the first chapter, and it takes Bathsheeba the whole book to see it. The characters really make the book. The reader really has strong feelings about them, and Hardy puts them in situations where you just don't know what they're going to do. The atmosphere that Hardy creates is (as is in all of Hardy's novel) amazing and totally original. I don't think any other author (except Wallace Stegner in America) has ever evoked a sense of place as well as Hardy does. Overall, Far from the Madding Crowd is a great novel. I probably don't like it quite as well as some of his others, but I still do think it deserved five stars.

In this one, George takes a sharp turn. The complexity is still present but there is a bitterness here not found in her prior works. She never employs random killings, senseless crimes, or madmen. What she does do is paint a heart-rending portrait of the human condition better than anyone I know. Character and plot develop together - a difficult task that seems to be her forte. I wondered how the seemingly disparate parts related but never fear, they are joined in an incredible ending.

The characters in this book continue to haunt me. Ones feelings toward the "heroine" slowly evolve from revulsion to anger to pity to awe as the story proceeds. The way she connects animal rights, disease, sports and above all, human relations, is superb. This is without a doubt one of the finest mysteries ever penned.

I first read Slocum's account ... while riding ... on a ferryboat. My experience with boating is basically limited to... that ferry ride,... I certainly cannot review "Alone" on any sort of technical level. I just know that it's the ideal escape fantasy. Here Slocum travels the world on his own terms, emphasizing all the pleasures of reading on an empty sea by day, while making the difficult parts (the storms, the pirates) seem like amusing diversions.

The leaden 19th century prose is probably the biggest obstacle to enjoying the book. A narrative of the same journey written today would be far more action-oriented. However, the reader can fill in the parts that Slocum makes seem harmless -- the illnesses, the fear of sudden death, the near madness after 70 days alone on the Pacific -- for a truer taste of just how harrowing the voyage must really have been. And then there's always the pleasure of dining with island governors, and the hobnobbing with celebrity (Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson has a large role), and unintentional amusement as Slocum describes, and bypasses, the island where a recent series of "Survivor" was filmed.

When the nautical urge strikes me, this is the book I read.

Slocum's clarity of thought and vivid descriptions are wonderful to study and consider. Today, world travellers must equip themselves lavishly with things. Slocum equiped himself with little materially. He was lavishly equiped with intelligence, the ability to take action on knowledge.

He colorfully demonstrates the ability to solve problems through forethought. Could that be good guidance?