Even if your just an animal lover, this little book will make you smile. Quick reading, very entertaining. It's a must for all
Oz nuts. In this troubliing world we live in today, read this one with your kids. It'll brighten you day for days!

If you want an Oz book that is fun to read to yourself or to children, this is the ticket! Page after page, I said to myself "this is just darling!" Toto is America's favorite canine and The Wizard of Oz is the most endearing movie of all time. I am so glad that Willard Carroll put this book together it is just terrific.

Hollywood's Golden Era is captured so well as you easily travel through page after page. I promise that you won't put it down until you're finished and the kids (especially the ones who watch the movie on a daily basis) will love for you to read this to them.

Congratulations to Author Carroll, who has Oz in his heart and soul and managed to put it down on paper for all of us to enjoy. How many times I've watched that movie and simply focused on Toto, who was just the cutest dog in the world. He makes everybody want to adopt him, well, now this is the next best thing.
Elaine Willingham
St. Louis, MO

I read this in an evening. Really enjoyed it as I am the owner of 2 Cairns and a lifelong fan of the Wizard of OZ.

My girlfriend gave me this book when we started dating. It was the first cookbook I ever owned, I had no idea what a gem it was. Since then my mother gave me all her Cajun-Creole books (about 25 in all), books signed by Emeril and Paul Prudhomme, none compare, this is without a doubt my favorite.

Everyone lays claim to 'authentic' Cajun-Creole recipes, recipes need to have this ingredient or that or else they're not Cajun-Creole. If there were such a standard (there isn't), then this book would have to serve as the measure.

My wife often suggests that giving me this book helped convince me to marry her ;-)

This is a wonderful book, filled with tasty, authentic recipes and history. The New Orleans French Loaves are the easiest, tastiest bread I've ever made. This book is a treasure.

No other Cajun recipe book compares to this one. I wanted Grandma's recipes, and now I have 'em! The Jambalaya and Fricassee recipe's are famous at my house.

This is an excellent book on both media coverage of UFO's and media censorship in general. The author uses excellent research to show the overwhelming pattern of government interference in news reporting since World War I, and from there goes on to look at the way UFO reporting is managed by government influences. The book also includes excellent bibliographic references for those who want to read further. I always wondered why US media seldom reported UFO material without ridicule whereas the Belgium Air Force has seemingly been forthcoming with information and photographs regarding military contacts with UFO, and how the US media could ignore some of the persuasive evidence out there that something of importance is indeed going on. This book clarified things for me and, frankly, frightened me a little in the sense that it does appear public reality is heavily managed by the government and media. I guess I was more naive than I would have thought. I can't see the final picture yet, but this book is an important piece for those of us trying to assemble the UFO jigsaw puzzle. Buy this book!

In The Missing Times, Terry Hansen provides a clear, documented history of the relationships that exists between the national media and the United States Government, particularly on issues of national security. This aspect of the book alone is frightening to one's faith in the media as objective reporters of information. In fact, once you have read this book, you will never read a national daily, or watch a network newscast in quite the same way again. Hansen details how our military and intelligence communities are in the business of shaping public opinion and reaction through information management. How incompetent would they have to have been not to recognize the national media as an indispensable, efficient tool for their goals? Mr. Hansen details the exact mechanisms by which the government exercises their influence over the national media with chilling clarity, right down to CIA infiltration.

Local media, without strong connections to Washington D.C., corporate ties to defense contractors or heavy infiltration from intelligence agencies are shown to be less likely to present the government viewpoint, and may present more accurate information on any number of subjects, including UFOs.

A picture then evolves of the complicit relationship that exists between the government and the media. Through historical review, Mr. Hansen demonstrates how the press follows a government line when it comes to issues of secrecy and national security.

What happens when we insert UFOs into this equation? The answer is a perfect fit; the national media treats UFOs exactly as it does other subjects deemed to be of great national security importance and secrecy. This fact is skillfully demonstrated through an examination of UFO incursions over nuclear missile silos near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. Unidentified objects could enter and leave restricted airspace with impunity. Such incidents have obvious national security implications. Widely reported in the local media, these astonishing and well-documented incidents were ignored by the national media until much later. Could the media have been influenced by a government that, despite their protests to the contrary, knows full well that UFOs are a national security issue?

Mr. Hansen goes out of his way to avoid speculation, and seems to be calling his fellow citizens not to believe in UFOs, but to be skeptical about what the national media, as a front for the government, tells us about them. It is a wise lesson that you won't forget.

The Missing Times is written with clarity and journalistic integrity. It is not a hastily written UFO book full of anecdotes and fuzzy pictures. It is objective reporting of the undeniable relationships between the government, the media, and you. It is also one of the most heavily footnoted books I have ever read, providing proof of the depth of research that went into it. If the Pulitzer Prize were given for merit, quality, insightful analysis and relevance, journalist Terry Hansen would have one on his bookshelf right now.

A substantial portion of this book is _not_ about government deceptions regarding the UFO question. Much of it is devoted to the historical context. The book describes how the government has repeatedly and successfully compromised the integrity of "elite" news media to manipulate public opinion on virtually every major public issue of the last century, from World War I to the war in Vietnam a half century later.

The book is totally free of speculative "conspiracy theories," but it does contain one sensational revelation: a memo discovered in the Smithsonian Institution archives proves that a CBS news "documentary" debunking UFOs (narrated by the revered Walter Cronkite) was done with the collusion of the Central Intelligance Agency.

This is a work of major importance not just on the history of UFOs, but on the history of America in the 20th Century. With the prospect of yet another war looming on the horizon and the news coverage of the preparations for war already at a fever pitch in some news media, the book may also be highly relevant to this new century as history threatens to repeat itself.

This book really breaks down components of the business into a very workable and specific approach. I have a cousin who works in commercials and now understand better so much of what she goes through. It's much more than luck or knowing people, which is a common myth, and this books gives some sound facts.

This book is a very thorough introduction to Commercial Acting. Perfect for a beginner who wants to learn how to start acting in commercials. The book will teach you about getting your commercial headshots, how to put together an acting resume, and what training you will need. There is also a valuable chapter on avoiding Scams. If you want to know what to expect on a commercial audition and how the casting of commercials is done - this book is for you. A very useful resource for any commercial actor.

This book is dead on. Don't worry about the publishing date being 1997--these are the basics and they still apply. Having appeared in a national commercial, relocated to Los Angeles after four years of regional experience, and now going on several auditions for principal parts each and every week, the authors capture the experience "dead on" and offer invaluable advice. As you read the book, make sure you have a highlighter or pad and pencil handy to jot down specifics that apply to you. I've already updated my resume based on the authors' suggestions and have arranged for a more appropriate headshot. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Terri Marr's book is quite inspirational to those of us who were born into the "knowing and experiencing" of God. As well as to those of us who are, now, just coming into our own in and with God. It allowed me, and others I have shared her book with, to see that there is no perfect Christian - regardless of how long you have been saved. The Lord knows who He has created and what He has stored within you, even before you are born into this natural realm. You may detour from your destiny but it will come to pass, if it is God's will. He does not desire to see any of His children perish without fulfilling His destiny and purpose. I thank the Lord for Terri Marr's insight and wisdom into Christianity and the walk with and to Jesus Christ. It unburden my soul and allowed me to truly experience God on a daily basis, without the pressure of others' expectations on my spiritual growth. "The race is not given to the swift."

This book is a must read. It inspired me to pursue the call of God on my life, at all cost!

There are so many interesting things about this book but what stands out the most is that Minister Terry Marr was indeed faithful to the call of God and knew his voice and that it was he who was leading her and communicating with her even when she was a child.

Seldom have I read a book about a real person that held me inmy chair for such a long time. I had heard about Terry Mcgovern butnever knew the real story. This first hand account of Terry Mcgovern's life is tough to read. George Mcgovern's account of his daughters life had the right mixture of pathos and humor and made me think about alcoholism in a totally different light. GREAT!

I read this book when it first came out. At the time I was suffering from depression and alcoholism. I wept as I read the pages because I knew that I too could end up like Terry. I felt for Terry and her family all through out the book. I also realized how my family must have felt and how they might feel if I too fell victim to myself and alcohol. You have to give credit to the courageouls George McGovern to share his families sacred secrets and tradgedy. This is a must have book for anyone who is an alcoholic, heavy drinker or depressed or anyone who knows or lives with an alcoholic or heavy drinker.

George McGovern honors the memory of his daughter, and struggles to understand his own choices and mistakes in this powerfully moving and tragic story. Deep thanks and deep condolences are due McGovern for writing this book. He raises an issue that must be emphasized: his daughter fell victim to the self-pity and the delusions of the "wounded child" craze of the early '90s. She was aided and abetted by reckless "therapists" who encouraged her to blame all her problems on her family, her upbringing, and especially her parents. The greatest tragedy of Terry McGovern's life was not that she was an alcoholic, but that she was an alcoholic who refused to use the tools available to her to get better. Exactly why she made that choice can never be fully known. But clearly the healthiest, most productive, and most sane years of her life were the 8-years she was treating her alcoholism in AA (which is not the "secret society" absurdly referred to by an earlier reviewer; an organization open to all of the public and listed in the telephone book is not a secret society). AA teaches the need to take responsibility for one's actions, not blame Mommy and Daddy. Terry chose not to take responsibility, and instead descended into the quicksand of psychobabble and infantilization of the "inner-child," recovered memory, Blame-Everything-On-Your-Parents school of late 20th century American psychology. The destructiveness of this philsophy and its practitioners needs to be more fully revealed. Everyone interested in this problem as well as in alcoholism should read this book.

Major Terry's personal account of his experience in the Korean "Police Action" put color into the black and white images
many "baby-boomers" have of this war. His descriptive prose (written in the vernacular of the 50's) provides the reader with a visceral feeling of the pain and simple pleasures experienced by combat troops. This book is user-friendly with it's explanation, use and application of military jargon for readers who did not serve in the armed forces.

...that will, hopefully, serve to remind us of the committed men and women who fought and died during that awful "forgotten war" on that dirty little peninsula 50 years ago. As the child of a "Pusan Commando," I have often wondered about the war that my father was so reluctant to speak of. Mr. Terry vividly illustrates that war, and wastes no time writing eulogies or second-guessing the policies of the time. He tells of the events, and little more, in a concise manner reminiscent of Hemingway, with a down-home ease and matter-of-fact manner that is sure to drawn in the reader. This book is for the Korean War what THE LONGEST DAY was for WWII. A must read for anyone.

This first-hand account begs the ultimate question facing us today:

What if we hadn't flown in the so-called "unprepared and un-equipped Army troops from Japan to hold the Pusan perimeter? What if the ports were mined, our ships blocked by fast patrol boats and thousands of miles away? What if we had waited for ships to arrive?

The answer is the North Koreans would have over-ran the South and the U.S. would have accepted this as fait accompli. Look what we did when the Chinese Communists ran the Nationalist Chinese off to the island of Taiwan a few years earlier in 1949.

Today, this is why we have a U.S. Army 2d Infantry Division and an 8th Army Headquarters on the ground in Korea today--so America is not interdicted and forced to "cut and run" either strategically or on the battlefield where BOTH Soldiers and marines oriented to fighting a linear war had to retreat or else be encircled and annihilated by superior numbers of enemy swarming across rugged mountain/hill terrain. Today, we will stand at fight, just like the gallant men of the first Korean War did. South Korea would have been lost to Communism had it not been for U.S. Army Soldiers like Addison Terry "going as is when he was called". It was men like him who then held the Pusan perimeter for weeks so we could assemble the ships together to do General MacArthur's Inchon maneuver warfare masterpiece, cutting off the enemy deep in their own rear and retaking he capital of Seoul. However, we will not have weeks and months again in the future to do this amphibious stunt again.

The lesson of this book is that we have to have AIR-delivered U.S. Army forces ready NOW to fly to the aid of U.S. Army and AF forces already on the ground "holding the perimeter"--let's not lose sight of the fact that these kinds of forces saved the day in Korea long ago, as unready as would have like them to be in favor of allegedly better forces that cannot get there at all or in time in a world that moves by the speed of the air where surface ship wakes are seen from space and targeted by mines, missiles, patrol boats and modern diesel-electric "ultra stealthy" submarines.

The nemy thought in 1950, that he could "smash and grab" South Korea before we could get men on the ground to stop him. Men like Addison Terry proved them wrong.

Honestly, this book deserves five stars or more! I have found this nice volume of 197 pages extremely helpful in my writing, and Mr. Brooks is genious! Don't pass up the chance to read this one if you are an aspiring fantasy writer(if your an aspiring writer period it should be helpful), and learn a bit about the man behind so many great works.

Terry Brooks' new book, entitled, "Sometimes the Magic Works," is both a journey through time and a collection of advice on writing fiction. The journey is Brooks', as he moves from daydreaming schoolboy, to first-published author, to movie-adaption author with an opportunity to reach "millions of readers instead of 100's of thousands," to granddad who relearns the lessons of writing from his grandson.

The story of Brooks' writing career reveals that success comes from the author's talent, the willpower of the publishers, and the prevailing conditions for novels. Or as Brook says, "Luck." The book lays bare how things operate in the publishing world. While taking you on this journey, Brooks provides insight as to how he writes.

I admit I have never read a Terry Brooks novel. Although, I'm sure if I do someday, I would discover a great deal about what makes a good novel. But for now, my reactions to "Sometimes..." is based purely on my own experience with writing.

Writers all write in different ways. Brooks is a yin-yang writer, using both his yang intellect as well as his yin instinct. This is most evident in the book where he repeats the mantra he has espoused at the Maui Writers Conference, "Outline, outline, outline." Yet, later in the book, he says that the real joys in writing are the unexpected facets of the novel which the author discovers during the writing.

And here is a successful writer who admits to doing only one draft and one rewrite! So many other best-selling authors say they rewrite the same scene 24 times. I thought I was deficient because I become bored after one or two revisions. I figured the reader would see the difference between the third and fourth rewrite, but would not be able to say which is better-at that point I was just pushing the words around. Brooks validates my method as workable for some writers.

Similarly, the rest of the writing advice Brooks gives in "Sometimes..." resonates with me. It could resonate with you too if you write the same way. But if you are one of those "rewrite 24 times before I'm done" writers, Brooks will provide you with a different perspective. He may give you ideas on different approaches to try.

He does it quite gently and simply. Having heard him lecture at the Maui Writers Conference, I could hear his voice as I read "Sometimes..." Reading his book is like having him personally lecturing you on his experiences in writing. It is definitely worth the trip.

---Jared Lum

My favorite is what he says about outlining. He mentions talking with several well-known authors who work without outlines. But, he points out, they do several revisions whereas he does one draft and one revision and he's done. And he uses an outline. And he sums it up by saying you can either do all the hard work up front (outlining) or at the end (revision).

He also provides a lot of insight into the reality of the often-perceived "glamorous" situation of being a novelist in Hollywood, and the differences between two novelization projects he did.

Like Stephen King's "On Writing," it's part autobiography and part writing book. I'd recommend both since the two authors have different but equally enlightening styles.

Katie Lee has led a remarkable life. But while she may be a fine story teller for a live audience, she is a poor writer. I found it a slow book to flog myself through- despite an enormous interest in the subject. Too bad she couldn't have put her ego aside and sat down with a professional writer. I can think of several women writers of the west that would have been a boon to the project. I look forward to the Katie Lee biography from one of them.

Katie Lee has written a beautiful & powerful love story & funeral song to a place some considered the most beautiful on earth, now drowned under Lake Powell. The book is largely exerpts from Katie's river journals from 40+yrs ago & has an immediacy that left me feeling like I was in Glen Canyon with her. She mentions that she shared early drafts of a fiction version with Ed Abbey, who told her to just write her own story. That she couldn't make up anything better than her own experiences. Ed Abbey was right. I devoured the book in one emotional sitting, then spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly with dreams & visions of lost desert canyons in my mind.

Katie Lee has given us a wonderful glimpse at a lost treasure. Her discriptions of the river and side canyons tell of her love of this lost world. My 2nd greatgrandfather went through Glen Canyon in 1872 with the second Powell Expedition and Katie has given me some feeling as to What he saw and the places he visited. I never understood what a treasure Glen Canyon was to Us till I read her book. Thank You Katie Lee

This book is filled with lots of hillarious song lyrics, ranging from the witty to the weird and silly and is useful if you feel the need to sing along to some of your favourite Python songs while listening to a Python* CD, especially when you come across parts where it is difficult to understand what they are singing. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend buying this book. The artwork is interesting**, but is not worthwhile in itself, and just reading the lyrics is less rewarding than listening to the songs. And none of the songs are new. So if you just like LISTENING to Python CDs and don't feel the need to join in***, there is no point in buying the book. Furthermore, if you want it for playing the songs on the piano, as some of the other reviewers point out, it is often difficult to read, and it is also impossible to prop up properly without causing some damage to the spine (of course if you don't care, you could just cut out the pages, etc.).

*Not recommended for singing along to death metal bands...

Wow. I have the big box set of Monty Python's Flying circus, and had basically memorized all of the songs. I also have most of the movies. So finding this little jewel was a real treat! Now I can play them on my trusty piano, and have the background music. This will make for some weird family reunions :)

This is a book for every Monty Python fan out there! It is really excellent, and includes almost all the songs, excluding a few of the lesser ones like "Sgnt Duckie's Song" and "The Window Cleaner Song" but just about everything else is in there. Admittedly, it's a bit annoying about some of the music being illigeble, such as "Eric the Half A Bee" appearing in a sphere shape, and "Bing Tiddle Tiddle Bong" being flipped totally around. However, it's still a great book, and the foreword, afterword, and middleword by Elvis and God are very funny. There's nothing better than to sit down at the piano sometimes and just play magnificent songs like "I've got a Ferret sticking up my nose..." This is a super book!