A wonderfully exciting and educational book taking the reader to Egypt. Lots of adventure to please both boys and girls mixed in with helping children learn to cope with loss. It's an attention holding book for adults as well. Great writing! A book for every child's library shelf.
Evelyn Horan - teacher/counselor/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl Books One - Three

"The Story of Bes" was a brilliant book. Not only did was it witty, but also educational. This book would not only be good for kids, but grown-ups as well. I found it to be extremely clever. Shelli Wright Johnson is a magnificent new author. I hope there are more books where this came from. Get writing on those sequels!

"The Story of Bes" was an amazing book. It was brilliant and witty. I think this book would be enjoyable to people of all ages! Shelli Wright Johnson is the hottest new author. I hope she writes sequels. Everyone should buy this book. Its not only entertaining and enjoyable, but educational. And not in a boring way. Plus it teaches kids that everyone goes through changes in their lives, but they don't all have to be bad.

Just finished reading this book a few days ago, and I've got to say that it's one of the best WWII non-fiction books I've ever read. Not only is it easy to read and exciting, but Mr. Bruning skillfully covers some of the more technical aspects of Johnson's air combat battles.

Good for hard-core WWII air combat nuts (like me!) as well as the average reader. Anyone with any interest in combat aircraft, WWII, or great reading material in general will love this book!

-Scott Rudi

John's latest, "Jungle Ace," ranks without a doubt as one of the best biographies that I have ever read. John spent several years painstakingly researching for this book, and it shows in the incredible level of detail contained in these pages. Without boring us with this detail, the book highlights John's ability to tell a story with just the right word selection to paint a vivid, movie-like picture in the reader's mind. "Jungle Ace" follows the life of P-38 fighter ace Jerry Johnson from schoolboy to aviation candidate to grisly combat conditions, all in amazing clarity that will immerse you into the story, as if you were standing side by side with Johnson himself. As tense and taughtly written as a best-selling fiction novel, author Bruning has created a story that even non-aviation history buffs will enjoy thoroughly...

For those readers looking to see just how demanding, unforgiving and gruesome air combat in the steaming jungles of the South Pacific islands could be, this is the book for you. "Jungle Ace" is a rich, vivid and thoroughly honest chronicle of a young Oregon man who helped save the world. A rewarding read that goes beyond the military history genre.

I enjoyed this book totally. This is a very personal account of Col. Johnson's career and life. This is not just a history of the missions or battles in which he fought but a chance to really know the man and to understand what it was like to be a fighter pilot in the Pacific. The photos were not just "stock" photos but photos from his personal album. It is clear that an immense amount of research went into this book. This is not a rehash of already known history but a new and fresh look at Colonel Johnson, the man. I highly recommend this title.

I have the original 1894 version of this book and have enjoyed it for many years. The perspective of battles is fresh in comparison to the history books of today.There is so much more in this book, the engravings and pictures are wonderful. I would highly recommend even a copy.

This review comes from a reading of the original 1894 edition. Filled with many obscure and forgotten details, this book is a treasure for Civil War historians. Songs, complete with full lyrics, as well as specific orders of battle give this reading a timely presence. Written in the traditional language of the era, the events have a kind of realism that brings you face to face with history. Originally this volume was sold by subscription only @ N.Y. BY KNIGHT AND BROWN. After having this book in my possession for many years it is very exciting to see that it has been reprinted at long last.

The Civil War was the most important conflict the U.S. has ever been involved in, bar none. The military, ethical, and governmental consequences have been enormous. Campfire & Battlefield gives us a unique perspective of this great event.

This book is really great. I wish I could have had the pleasure to meet Coach Wooden, but after reading this book I feel like I know him. The Woodenisms and interviews are great, and the Pyramid of Success Lecture is as written by Coach himself. Highly recommended.

This is the best book to date on Coach Wooden. He is an outstanding person who was able to motivate his players to be their best, without putting undue pressure on them. The Pyramid of Success can be helpful for business people, athletes, teachers, students, and just about everyone looking into learing a new philosophy on life. Great book. Highly recommend it.

Really enjoyed reading what is author Neville Johnson's labor of love to acknowledge perhaps the greatest sports coach of all time and Woodens legacy in that he is truly at heart an outstanding teacher for the ages. The detail, background info, and interviews on Coach Wooden are perhaps unmatched when it comes to chronicling coach's life and how coach Wooden developed his Pyramid of Success over the years and how you can apply that to your life!

In 1900 James Weldon Johnson, and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, wrote a song for a chorus of five hundred black school children, in Jacksonville, Florida, to sing in celebration of Lincoln's birthday. The song was originally published by mimeograph, and intended only for that year's remembrance of President Lincoln. Yet, the black school children of Jacksonville kept singing. ...and because the song reflected the truth of the black experience in America, the chorus swelled from five hundred to millions of voices. Today "Lift Every Voice and Sing" is alternately referred to as the "Black National Anthem"

Deeply patriotic, and clinging to a vision of an America healed of the scourge of racism, the brothers Johnson answered Francis Scott Key's anthem with realism, pathos, and hope. Whereas Key's song speaks of the external, military enemy, the Johnsons' chorus speaks of the more insidious internal enemy of racism. Whereas Key wrote of liberty already won and now demanding defense, the Johnsons wrote of liberty delayed, eventually promised, seen, but not yet fully acheived.

In this anthology, the editors give us an history of this deeply moving piece of music, and a chronology of its authors. They also give us one hundred short reponses to the song -- almost meditations -- by Americans of every skin hue. Finally, the text includes a pictoral display of the 20th century, American, black experience which is a treasure in and of itself.

This is more than a coffee table book. This is a book for all Americans to read and re-read: for in this text are planted the seeds of tolerance and understanding which our nation so desperately requires.

Julian Bond and Sondra K. Wilson have blazed a trail in editing this book. Mostly well-known Americans, but also some hidden gems, share with the reader what the Johnson brothers' song means to them.

And it means a lot to a cross section of Americans. One friend noted that if you read the book in one setting, as she did, you get a clear sense of how African American families taught their children to be revolutionaries. These children were taught about their history, and they were given the tools to dream and do something about their future. They had no choice; they had to march on until victory was won! And they did, from shacks in Mississippi, middle-class homes in Chicago and upper-class environments in Hollywood (where they often still could not get a decent meal in a restaurant), they were taught to fight for their freedom. They marched on--on buses, at "white only" lunch counters, over bridges with dogs and police daring them to cross,down lonely country roads with the KKK looking on--and though hundreds of marches, they fulfilled the dreams of their ancestors.

One of the real treasures of the book, besides the wonderful essays, is that one gets the sense, through exquisite historical photos, of how broad the African American experience is and continues to be. There are poor black women chopping cotton, and black men being killed. But there are also photograpshs of young black women on horseback in the 1950s, muslim women at a mosque, photographs of Muhammad Ali, James Weldon Johnson and his wife looking lovingly at each other, proud black women on their way to church and young children all dressed up to perform in some special show for their parents. These photos give you a sense that despite the hardship, we might be making some progress--that the race is okay and might survive.

I would like to thank Bond and Wilson for sharing with us the best of our culture. As one NY Amsterdam News' reviewer noted, "If you breathe, you should buy this book." It is a perfect gift for any occasion.

I admit that I intended to purchased this book simply because my grandmother, Jeanne Belle Osby Goodwin is one of the featured 100 voices. But as I read through some of the other essays, the song and the thousands of voices that I have heard sing its choruses filled my heart and mind with such glory. This book became a must have book for my loved ones. "Sing a song full of the hope..." We are a people of many trials and tribulations. This song, and the written words of the 100 serve as potent reminders that we can,do and will persevere- to sweet victory!

I'll make this short...For anyone interested in Chinese history, literature, or culture, this volume is an absolutely essential collection of primary sources, and includes prefaces and explanations by China scholars. There is no one better than de Bary, and this new edition includes everything from the 1960 edition up through the Jiang Zemin era.

I've read a little of this and that about Chinese history and religion, and I needed a book to fill in the basics and the details. This was perfect.

First, the selections included excerpts of almost everything I'd ever heard of: Shang Oracle Bones, the Analects of Confucius and the Confucian classics including the I Ching; Mozi; the Tao Te Ching; Zhuangzi (who famously dreamed that he was a butterfly); Mencius; Xunzi; the Zuozhuan; Sun Tzu's art of war; all kinds of stuff about Chinese schools of Buddhism including the Lotus Sutra and the Flower Garden Sutra and the history of Guanyin and Wutai Shan; Li Po (Li Bo) and Tu Fu (Du Fu); and neo-Confucianism (which was so influential in Korea). In short, this is really, practically the "Eatern Canon" and the selections are deserving of such a label. I was in turns morally and intellectually challenged, uplifted, informed and surprised; but rarely bored and never disappointed.

Second, the introductory essays were exactly what I wanted to know: who might have written it, and when, and who read, and what it meant to them. For all that information, they were still brief and the bibliography was sufficient to help me chase the points that left me curious. An important thing these essays did was to cover the political, historical and social backgrounds (and foregrounds) of the texts, so I learned about Chinese history as well as literature and religion. If that is what you want to do, this book will serve you well.

The binding is excellent, and while the price might look steep I have to say it's a bargain considering what you get.

I didn't read Volume Two, and so I don't know if it is as good. It is certainly a lot smaller!

This second edition of a classic provides an update on a reference recommended for college-level collections specializing in Chinese literature. Sources of Chinese Tradition has been recognized already as a scholarly staple: in its new form Sources of Chinese Tradition has been extended to include the Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin eras of China and includes invaluable source readings on history and literature of the times, from the 18th-century Qing civilization onward.

My personal library collection of baseball books includes several hundred volumes. Only a privileged few of these books sit on a small shelf handy above my word processor. Among the selected few is a newcomer, The Complete Book of Baseball's Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History by John Holway. This unique book succinctly traces the history of Negro baseball from pre-civil war days to the end of the Negro Major League era in 1948.

Mr. Holway is no stranger to the more than 7,000 members of the Society for American Baseball Research. He has been chronicling Negro baseball history since 1969, and has produced five previous books on the topic. His innumerable newspaper and magazine articles are referenced in the book's laudable bibliography. Well indexed, this book is the culmination of over three decades of dedicated ressearch by the man who knows more about Negro baseball than any writer ever. Royse "Crash" Paarr, co-author, Glory Days of Summer: The History of Baseball in Oklahoma.

"To appreciate any sport, you must learn about its entire history. And you can't truly appreciate baseball without learning about the Negro Leagues. Begin with this book."

As submitted to Hasting House on Dec. 10, 2001 via e-mail

"To appreciate any sport, you must learn about its entire histroy. And you can't truly appreciate baseball without learning about the Negro Leagues. Begin with this book."

-Sports Columnist, Kansas City Star

Prof.E McSquared's surpasses all of the Calculus books in my opinion, thro I'm still studing it, I was coming along good until to page 97, Exercise: II.3.3, I understand all of it until I got to this (2-1/2E<-3x+5<2+1/2E),which is OK, but than look at this (1/2<-E so,(-1)1/2E>(-1)E or-1/2>-E, too). Then [2-E<2-1/2E<-3+5<2+1/2E<2+E or 2-E<-3(x)+5 <2+E!] He should had used page 96 to explain the latter; will he or someone please try to tell me what is he trying to say, or how I could contact him.

Reviewer Jerry Harper spotted a typo in the 1975 edition
of Prof. McSquared's book and calls for a reply. The answer
to problem II.3.3 on page 205 contains the WRONG statement
(BUT 1/2 e < -e...). PROF. McSquared GOOFED! It should be
1/2 e < e!! This is corrected in the Expanded Intergalactic
Edition NOW reissued and available: ISBN 0971462402.
H. Swann, co-author, for Prof. McSquared

Twenty-six years ago, I had struggled through Calculus twice. The first time I got a D. The second time I raised it to a C. But I was not satisifed. I had always been good at math and I was not going to let it beat me. So, I signed up again. I remember sitting through this stultifying lecture on matrix theory that left me completely baffled and depressed. That afternoon, in a chemistry lab, my new lab partner showed me this photocopied booklet. It was a comic book Calculus book called "Professor E. McSquared's Original and Highly Esoteric Calculus Primer." He said his professor had written it. I asked when his class was and immediately switched sections. Howard Swann turned out to be Prof. McSquared in the flesh -- funny, energetic and the single best teacher of any discipline it has been my pleasure to study under in 22 years of formal education. The best! This book will change the way you look at Calculus. You will laugh and do the problems and, for the first time, you will actually understand what is going on. It will become second nature. The mystery will disappear, the fog will lift, the lock break open, the veil will pass from before your eyes. My classmates and I were among the first to enjoy Prof. McSquared. The book was formally published for the first time the following year, 1974. It is still in print. That has to tell you something. This book will show you that you CAN not only do Calculus but understand it an even enjoy it. Buy it. It will be a gift to you.

In his book, Johnson states "There is an advantage in every disadvantage, and a gift in every problem" and "I believe that the greater the handicap the greater the triumph." By this he means to say that disadvantage creates opportunities and forces one to do more with less. He believed that disadvantages were "...challenges to be overcome and not facts to be accepted." A disadvantage provides a challenge that, with the proper motivation and mindset, forces one to try a little harder and work a little smarter.

Two distinct disadvantages that Johnson cites are early in his life: 1) Arkansas City (his birthplace) did not provide a high school education for African Americans, and 2) The economic depression stemming from the Great Depression. These two disadvantages, when taken together, provided a sort of "critical mass" that propelled Johnson on the trajectory that is his story -- his move to Chicago and subsequent business endeavors.

The fact that the disadvantages cited above were realized so early in life is worth note. There is a scientific discipline known as "Chaos Theory" that, among other precepts, states that the time evolution of a series of interrelated complex events is extremely sensitive to the system's initial condition. The analogy that may be drawn to Johnson's life is this: had he not moved to Chicago due to his ambition and his Mother's tremendous sacrifices for her son's education, it would have become increasingly difficult for Johnson to have succeeded to the extent he did, as chronicled in his autobiography.

This statement is supported by the many references he makes in the book about the seemingly random events that led to his success as a businessman; Johnson states, "I'm scared someone with pinch me and wake me up." Thus, it seems that the many disadvantages the author faced throughout life, most notably (in his words) early in life, created an advantage, which led him to great wealth and notoriety.

I could definitely related to Mr.Johnson's story. It is inspiring, insightful, and truly a guide to those of us on the often obstacle laden road to success.

Never allow your personal feelings or emotions to close the doors of oppourtunities. Where the is a will there truly is a way. His story is remarkable and his book enables you to understand that yours is too.

Think and Grow Rich...

I like this book very much,for I used to be a officer that rank is major,I admire his method (or skill) to solve every different problem.

This book is a must read, not only for boxing fans seeking more information about the first black heavyweight champion, but also for students of American history and specifically race relations in the U.S. Johnson's writing is insightful, eloquent and scholarly. He refused to allow the abysmal prejudice of whites to deter him from his goals, and enjoyed his life to the fullest. He maintained his dignity and judgement despite the efforts to break him. His book shows him to be a man of immense intellect, who could have excelled in any field of his choice. His views on the pace of 'modern' life, diet, physical fitness and race relations are as relevant today as they were in 1927. This book was a great surprise to me as I picked it up as a boxing fan, but the scope of Jack Johnson as a man goes far beyond the squared circle. His life was epic and his words timeless. This is a book for all times, by a passionate, inspired and inspiring man.

This autobiography is a much-needed corrective to playwright Howard Sackler's artistically over-licensed opus "The Great White Hope", dramatized on stage and in film in the late 1960's. As a self-portrait of a Black man living in a particular time and place, it is not only a record of Mr. Johnson's matchless skill as a boxer, but more importantly, it is a journey into an all-encompassing Black mind, an intellect as well as a striking physical specimen, who broke out a new mold for the image of the athelete as someone capable of possessing as much "brains" as they had "brawn." Johnson was so clearly head and shoulders above his peers and detractors that it is no wonder why he was hated and feared by many whites. When enough people of color have read this book, it is likely that Mr. Johnson may be put under the same sun that shines on the likes of Paul Robeson and Jackie Robinson: Black "Renaissance" men whose lives outside of their sport(s) have been obscured because of their insight, outspokeness, and general refusal to be limited by their "race." Don't let "Black History" month slip by without attempting to get onto, and into this priceless autobiography by a true "giant" of a man.

Jack Johnson was a true Rebel.in another time&place he would have been more respected.this book does a good job reflecting on him.it's one of the few times that he gets actual repesct.a must read and he shouldn't be forgotten.