Tom Huggler's writing style is showcased in his book,"A Fall of Woodcock." Tom takes the readers across the nation in the pursuit of the mystical woodcock. Tom shares the total experience with the reader: the drive, the meeting of new friends, and the hunt. Reading to book makes one feel like he is sitting by the campfire being enchanted by an old friend who is a master storyteller. This book deserves to be in every outdoors person's bookcase.

Follow Me Down tells the story of a fifty-year old man and his wife, a love-lost young woman, a deaf and dumb young man and his mother, and a defense attorney with a chip on his shoulder. Told through the eyes of eight characters, the story revolves around a violent act, recounting the story behind it. The novel is filled with well developed characters overflowing with uncontrollable emotions and the resulting consequences of them. In closing, Shelby Foote's Follow Me Down grabs your attention and holds it until the last page.

Most everyone acquainted with Shelby Foote know him through his Civil War history and the Ken Burns Civil War series. He is, however, a Southern novelist of the first calibre, and his raw talents are spectacularly displayed in this his first published work. Most writers could strive for a lifetime and never come close to the quality of this book. I highly recomend it to anyone who is interested in Foote as a writer or in Southern literature as a genre.

From a personal experience of coming into close contact with a large ship while sailing in Galway Bay, first time author Tom Foote has created a fast-paced tale of arms-running intrigue, involving the IRA and Middle Eastern arms dealers, which holds the attention from start to finish. In "Undertow", the encounter with a large vessel in the bay which rams the yacht piloted by Jim Prendergast, killing his wife and daughter in the process, marks the beginning of a saga which leads from the border counties of Ireland to Malta and beyond, with much of the action also centring in Galway. The many strands of the plot draw in the British Ambassador to Ireland, MI6, northern members of the IRA, Middle Eastern arms suppliers and the evil Foster, whose shadowy figure is present from beginning to end.. While being a devotee of neither thriller nor sailing-based stories, I found "Undertow" to be a compelling narrative which does not blind with too much nautical detail. The action moves along smoothly and interest is maintained, though one needs a fairly strong stomach for some of the more violent passages.

Undertow will quickly draw you in with a cast of interesting characters, wonderfully vivid exotic locations, and a fast-paced yet thought-provoking plot.

The book is set in Ireland and around the Med (with a number of other locations thrown in) and follows a yachtsman who finds himself drawn into a terrorist plot.

As a sailor myself, I have cruised to a number of the ports Tom describes in the book (and actually met Tom at one of them!?!) and find his descriptions to be accurate and vivid portrayals of the locations. The author lives on a boat, travelling to these places himself and sees them as a mariner does - not a tourist. You could not hope for a more realistic description of the exotic ports in Ireland and the Mediterranean as well as life at sea on ships and yachts.

Undertow is a great read for anyone interested in adventure and the sea - I hope he will write more for us!

. . .but there were a number of reasons it doesn't score 5 stars, at least in the mind of this reviewer.

There is no doubt that Wolfe has written a very, very good "novel" (history, really) about the great test pilots of the 1950's and especially the Mercury 7 astronauts. He as gone far to try to make the story as accurate and honest as possible. For this, he should be commended. And frankly, the book was just plain fun to read, especially for someone (like myself) who is a staunch supporter of the space program.

However, I was put off by Wolfe's casual writing style. Yes, it's a personal beef -- but this is a personal review, and I just didn't resonate with him stylistically! More serious, though, to my mind, was what the book 'did' -- and that is, to seriously deconstruct a myth. The men (and their families) depicted in the book, were (and to a certain extent, still are) heros in the minds of many Americans -- in a time when American badly needed heros. And to my mind, Wolfe trimmed those heros down to size. I'm not convinced that this was necessary -- or a good idea.

No, I'm not naive. I realize that ALL heros have feet of clay. I'm just not sure that it is appropriate -- or healthy -- to exploit that clay.

For a very long time "The Right Stuff" was my favorite book (excluding the Bible, which is unique). Even after reading Dante's "Divine Comedy," I'm not sure Wolfe's book has been dislodged from its position.

Wolfe begins to work his literary magic on the first page. A young, beautiful woman is worried about her husband, a Navy test pilot, having heard that there has been a plane crash. Space buffs like me reading the book are fascinated to realize that the woman is Jane Conrad, wife of Pete Conrad (which, incidentally, tells us that the bad news that day won't be about her husband). If this scene appeared in a different book about the space program, even one as superb as Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon" or Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger's "Apollo 13," the account of events, while exciting and suspenseful, would remain on a somewhat mundane plane of everyday reality. Wolfe's glittering, idiosyncratic literary style lifts events into a world of super-reality. We experience Jane Conrad's concern and dread as if we were Jane Conrad. Perhaps more than any other book I have read, "The Right Stuff" has caused me to remember the events it relates as if I lived through them rather than reading about them.

One noteworthy feature of Wolfe's style in this book is his nearly Wagnerian use of verbal "leitmotiven," key phrases which pop up over and over in the book and come to convey far more than the simple content of the words. Anyone who has read the book will remember for a long time Wolfe's use of such phrases as "bad streak," "Flying and Drinking and Drinking and Driving," "the Integral," "our rockets always blow up," "the Presbyterian Pilot," "single combat warrior," "ziggurat," and, of course, "the right stuff."

The book also contains the funniest set-piece in any book I have ever read, the description of the celebration when the astronauts and their families first visit Houston, including the fan dance by the ancient Sally Rand. Interestingly, in the excellent film version of the book this scene was transformed from a hilarious comedy sequence into something elegiac, intercut with the sequence of Chuck Yeager bailing out of a plane (which happened on a different day in reality and in the book) to create drama and suspense. In this radically different form the two sequences are just as effective in the movie as they are in the book.

"The Right Stuff" has sometimes been criticized for being overly fictionalized, or at least speculative. These criticisms probably have a great deal of validity, but they do not alter the fact that "The Right Stuff" is the definitive evocation of that brief era around 1960 when almost anything, good or bad, seemed possible. It is an unforgettable literary achievement.

What do you get when you mix an historian and a world-class writer? The Right Stuff. Tom Wolfe takes us back to a black and white time when America was apple pie and comic book heroes--at least in nostalgic hindsight. Amidst these glory years of the '50s and '60s there was trouble brewing, however. The Russians were winning the Space Race. Up to the plate step a group of true blue American heroes, men like John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Alan Shepard, and Chuck Yeager, men with the Right Stuff. Together they overcame technical barriers, tragedy, and the limits of human endurance to prevent the Soviets from controlling Space, the high ground from which they could drop nukes on us at will.

This superbly told story brings history alive. We are brought into the lives and heads of these complex real-life characters, family men who risked 25% mortality rates to "press the envelope" first as test pilots and then as astronauts. We cheer as the records fall and mourn the loss of those who "crash and burn."

Full research, high use of language, insightful character analysis, and exciting drama. You can't go wrong with the Right Stuff. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

This book is hard to put down. Foote's characters are so detailed and fascinting that I found my self totally drawn into the story --even though some of the characters are completely unlikeable and almost pathetic in their selfishness. Foote tells the story of two families affected by the same man (a virtual con-man, who sees himself only as ambitious -- and justified in everything he does). The book was written almost 50 years ago, but it still reads like a modern character study. I'll admit that some of the historical references where too obscure for me, but the characterizations are timeless.

I had given 5 stars to "Valuation," but I feel that this workbook is practically useless for its price. The problems in this book are not very challenging; they merely require echoed answers instead of questions providing in-depth analysis. Common questions include: "Name three issues in valuating X company" or "Name three reasons why X is preferred over B." These are simple questions one could easily answer by taking copious notes. I had expected much more challenging questions from the workbook, but I was sorely disappointed. My advice: Buy "Valuation" but avoid buying this book.

This workbook is a great companion to the bestselling Valuation book by McKinsey. A well organized resource that includes exercises and Q&A. The basic principle allows you to self-test your information and knowledge base. Understanding the valuation process can be challenging at times. This workbook is a great tool to help guide you through the process. I also use it as a quick reference problem solver.