Greg has written a book that is touching the hearts of so many people. As a young college student, I myself have had to overcome my sexuality and my HIV status. I finally met Greg on February 15th at the University of Miami, and it reinforced the idea of what a wonderful person he is. Greg's book is definitely one in a million. It's a must read for gays and straights, and people who are HIV positive and negative. His strength is capable of helping all of us live a more productive life... and to be happy with ourselves.

I remember watching Greg Louganis in 1988 and his last dive that gave him his fourth Olympic gold medal. I was only 7 years old and had no idea about what a struggle he had. When I found out that he was HIV-positive and gay, I was shocked. I don't know why. I read the book during my junior year in high school and enjoyed it. The information on diving was informative and I enjoyed that part. The part that surprised me the most was the way he talked openly and frankly about his lovers and his feelings for them. It was the first time I had ever read anything like that and it shocked me but then I got used to it. Sure, I've seen "Philadelphia" and the dancing scene but I always figured that they're actors and it was part of their jobs to do stuff like that. Call me naive; I was. But this, the things in the book, happened to a real person, one who is a vivid part of my childhood memories. In many parts, I was crying, trying to picture what Greg's life must have been like all those years and how it hurt him-all the teasing, taunts, rumors and other things he must have endured. I think he has a lot of courage to come out and write this book; to me it shows a person who is confident of where he is now in life and wants others to accept him for who he is.

GREG LOUGANIS' REAL LIFE STRUGGLES ARE VERY TOUCHING AND HOLD A DEEP AND PERSONAL MESSAGE FOR ALL. GROWING UP A SHY, QUIET, TALENTED YOUNG MAN AND GROWING UP TO BE THE GREATEST OLYMPIC DIVER EVER MAY SEEM IMPOSSIBLE. HOWEVER, HIS REAL LIFE STRUGGLES WERE EVEN MORE IMPOSSIBLE. I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO EVERYONE. ALSO IF YOU GET A CHANCE WATCH THE VIDEO ALSO. I RATE THEM BOTH VERY HIGHLY.

The reviews of this book are amazing.

I can see that every single review is positive and the advice in this program has worked wonders for me.

The book has 100 strategies that range from getting more benefit from aerobic activity by using a heart rate monitor to separating fact from fiction in nutritional supplements.

His real message is that exercise is to be enjoyed fully, to celebrate your body, to make it a lifelong passion. It's not new, but it's the best weight loss advice ever! And he shows you how to do it; he doesn't just tell you like a lot of books.

The book provides a good mix of nutrition, exercise, mental and emotional fitness tips. There is strength-training, weight loss, having more fun with exercise, finding the time. There's even a tip that shows you how to create your own entire exercise program right there in six steps!

Lets face it, if you follow just the exercise tips in this book, you will lose fat and more, you will have a HELL of a lot of fun. The advice is simple, it's easy to incorporate into your life and it will enrich you beyond the physical part.

If you don't believe me, just go to any bookstore and turn to any page in the book. You'll see what I mean. Kudos to the author and to his publisher for producing such a fantastic book.

Like most people, I struggle to stay motivated to exercise consistently. I have two daughters and a full-time job and exercise often gets relegated to the end of my to-do lists.

But this book really made a difference for me. It motivated me from the inside-out, rather than the outside-in (like many pep-talk fitness books).

Once motivated, I needed practical, simple advice I could follow and strategies that would produce real results -- or else I knew I would lose my motivation again. This book is filled with simple, new, results-oriented strategies: I've lost five pounds in the first two weeks since reading this book. More than that, however, I feel like a totally different person because I am "exercising smart, not hard" (as the author says) and having fun with it.

The Portable Personal Trainer is a fantastic book that will make an immediate and lasting impact on your fitness and quality of life.

Jessica Dollom
Topeka, Kansas

I've waited for a fitness book like this for a long time. All of my friends own this book as well -- it is OUTSTANDING.

This book is easy to read and offers health, weight loss and nutrition advice I haven't heard before. Most books seem to say the same things in different packaging. This book is new, fresh and fun! I am so thrilled with this book. It offers plenty of sound fitness advice, motivational tips and good humor. It is enthusiastic, light-hearted and inspiring. Eric Harr succeeds in speaking the simple truths on fitness in terms everyone can understand and use benefit from immediately.

With so many charlatans out there today peddling quick-fix fitness results, Eric Harr is a hero in the fitness world, as far as I'm concerned. I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in better fitness and a higher quality of life. Buy this book now. You will not be disappointed. It's extraordinary.

- Jennifer

"Orchid Fever" is a book with a mission to inform its readers about the evil (or misguided and blundering) bureaucracy of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and its mistreatment of orchids and orchid collectors. Eric Hansen makes his case over and over again about CITES' blunders into the rarified world of orchidists, including the confiscation and slaughter of thousands of rare, nursery-grown orchids under the auspices of conserving them.

"Blind rage, crippling jealousy, and wild exaggeration are commonplace in the quirky and insular world of orchid growing..." but Hansen still manages to make a good case against CITES' mishandling of endangered (and not so endangered) flora. He also intersperses his polemic with tales of wonderfully eccentric orchidists, monstrous orchid judges, and of course, the outrageously beautiful courtesans of the plant world themselves: the orchids.

If you think of orchid growing as an octogenerian's hobby in league with quilting or stamp collecting, here is Hansen's description of a wholesale orchid grower's catalogue: "I thumbed through the pages to familiarize myself with the range of flower forms. Immediately I was confronted with centerfolds showing downy, smooth petals and moistened, hot-pink lips that pouted in the direction of tautly curved shafts and heavily veined pouches."

By all means, read this book if you want to learn why your great-auntie Em ditched her crochet-work and is now growing those weird-looking flowers on her sun porch.

Too contrived to be true? The plot of Orchid Fever, a tale of the mania that surrounds CITES (Congress on Trade in Endangered Species) and endangered orchids, smacks of a TV tabloid expose studded with international intrigue, wily authorities, blameless miscreants, crafty smugglers, anonymous informers, and the occasional white knight. It all sounds barely credible. But orchid people will understand author Eric Hansen's fascination with this compelling tale of good intentions gone terribly awry. Hansen skillfully weaves anecdotal threads to support his assertion that CITES - as it applies to flora listed in Part II of its appendix - has been manipulated from its inception by some of the orchid establishment (read Kew Gardens in London, England) to perpetuate that establishment's own control and authority. Hansen shows how this jealous manipulation has produced a tragic oxymoron by further endangering the rare flora, in this case slipper orchids, that it proposes to save by thwarting legal propagation and salvage. Hansen finds real orchid people are way eccentric enough to populate his story. Some are familiar to orchid hobbyists as occasional club speakers while others are less well known. It doesn't matter. All are interesting as the tale spins from steaming Borneo jungles to the cold latitudes of Denmark, while Hansen attempts to ferret out the facts about reported orchid rustlers. Can these awful stories about needless destruction of Paphiopedilum sanderianums and other rare slippers be true? Unfortunately so. The line between who are the good guys and who are not blurs as Hansen describes rivalries that are all about power and influence and not about saving orchids. It's a maddening, frustrating, agonizing read as heavy-handed plant police stomp through greenhouses accomplishing only destruction. When asked tough questions, the horticultural authorities who are supposed to be wearing white hats are suspiciously uncommunicative. Just as the reader concludes that the situation is indeed hopeless, Hansen closes with a parable of salvation. Illustrating just what one man with a good idea and a lot of tenacity can do, the author introduces us to a Johnny Orchidseed of sorts, whose solo efforts have rescued untold thousands of endangered plants. Maybe there's room for hope, after all. Orchid Fever delivers its "tale of love, lust, and lunacy" in a big way. Anyone who's been around orchids for more than 20 minutes will understand the issues, recognize his or her friends (and self) and appreciate how deliciously Hansen describes the world of orchid mania. Pity that it took a horticultural holocaust to do it.

Orchid Fever is a great read. It is engaging, funny, informative, and outrageous. The author takes the reader into the hidden world of orchids introducing growers, breeders, scientists and hobbyists. Along the way the reader learns many fascinating facts about plant botany, plant politics, pollination processes and the many uses of orchids. Eric Hansen, an adventure traveler, is an excellent writer, immediately engaging the reader's attention and holding it throughout the book. He is a real storyteller. Each chapter reads like a delicious short story. The book was our Reading Group selection this month as a prelude to the big orchid show in our area next month. It was agreed we would never again look at orchids in quite the same way. We had a lively, laughing time discussing the book and in conclusion it received an all-thumbs-up.

The problem with CSS books is that they always take two tracks: They're either a rote reference of the specification, or they're random "projects" that the author either thinks are interesting or, more likely, just happened to complete himself at work, so he feels qualified to write about it. Eric Meyer on CSS is the latter, and it suffers greatly for it, especially if you don't just happen to need exactly the kind of site he likes to create. Which, quite frankly, are unexciting, especially when you consider some of the impressive CSS on the Web today. But the big problem is that core CSS topics are only mentioned--often in passing--when they solve a problem for a project. You'll get no run-down of the importance between various positioning styles, for example, until the CSS he uses throughout the whole book suddenly doesn't work and he has to try something different. Don't get me wrong, this book isn't worthless, but everyone here is acting like this book is a cure-all, and it's not. If you want to master CSS, you will still need several books, none of which are perfect.

I've read one of Eric Meyer's other books about CSS (Cascading Style Sheets - The Definitive Guide) and loved it for its informative style and still use it occasionally as a reference. His latest book takes a different approach, not a reference book but more one that takes information about CSS and applies it here to real life examples, which makes it much easier for the average CSS author to learn and see how the CSS styles shown relate to what is being done on the site it affects. The book consists of 13 chapters or "projects," ranging from converting an existing page to CSS, to styling a press release or events calendar, to even creating your own online greeting card. There's a companion web site, which lets you download the files to be used with each project.

The book is wonderfully laid-out with lots of gorgeous color drawings and figures, which aid the reader in understanding each change. The step by step instructions are easy to follow and with each CSS code change or addition shown in red, also easy to understand and follow along with. I was amazed at the wide range of effects that can be done using CSS, as shown with each project.

This book is an excellent "tutorial" for those wishing to learn more about CSS.

"Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design" is an instructional book written for those who have been disappointed with Web browser display results from using various brands of popular "drag & drop" website creation software.

The author, Eric Meyer, is an expert with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). By using CSS computer coding instructions, more precision can be brought to bear in a website layout. Top, bottom, and side-to-side distances between Web page objects can be better controlled with CSS commands rather then using just HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) code.

IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT DRAG & DROP
Seven years ago I purchased a thick book about HTML 2 and developed my first commercial website. The hand-coding involved not just the placement and formatting of text, it also required typing specific positioning instructions for the placement of the numerous JPEG images. It wasn't a precise exercise, and after going through this labor-intensive hand-coding process I anticipated with enthusiasm the development and arrival of drag & drop website development applications that would presumably end the need for typing code.

I purchased Adobe's PageMill drag & drop Web creation application when it was first available, but found myself frequently going to the HTML source code to make changes and better position the text and graphics elements. After PageMill, Adobe's GoLive proved a much better and more capable website creation product, and I believed the era of frequent involvement with typing HTML source code was behind me. However, some website layouts were not satisfactory enough when viewed in a browser. Spacing between text and images would sometimes be too wide or narrow. Reviewing the HTML source code would reveal nothing out of whack. So how to cure the problem? Cascading Style Sheets, as it turns out.

I've known about Cascading Style Sheets for a couple of years, but was unable to understand their real value from previous explanations I read. "Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design" solved the mystery for me. The knowledge and new skills I've gained from this book provided the learning breakthroughs I needed. I now get much better results positioning text and picture elements in a Web browser. Yes, it's back to some hand-coding, but I better understand and accept that CSS code is the best method for achieving the results I need and my clients require.

Helping the learning process are practice files for each of the thirteen chapters in this book that are downloaded from the website location provided by the author. Each tutorial file is identical to an example being explained in a particular chapter.

"Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design" is an excellent way to learn the creation of Cascading Style Sheets. There's only one improvement I can recommend for this book--spiral binding. With the typical glued binding I found myself needing weighted objects (including my elbow) to keep the book from slapping shut. Spiral binding would allow the pages to lay flat and make the process much easier with reading a paragraph and then performing the instructional tasks from the tutorial files while referring back to the book.

Tom Shackle is a multimedia producer and a member of the Alaskan Apple Users Group.

"Friends and Lovers" definitely shows the growth of Dickey as a writer. It is mature, insightful, passionate- just awesome. My sister and I have read this novel and enjoyed many lengthy conversations; especially about Shelby, Richard, and Tyrel's thang. "What is up" with that? The book was an emotional rollercoaster, especially what happened to Leonard. But who says that life isn't always flowers and candy. Even though Shelby got on my nerves, I loved her anyway. It is apparent that Dickey took efforts to make this story real. I thank him for allowing me to know Debra, Leonard, Shelby, and Tyrel while taking the chance to visit with Chiquita once again. I laughed and cried as I learned lessons I'll never forget. "Milk in My Coffee" is definitely on my list for September.

Once again, Eric Jerome Dickey has restored my faith in the unity of friendships and relationships. He creatively projects positive, realistic images in Tyree, Debra, Shelby and Leonard that are hardly ever seen or heard of in the media. Dickey discusses strong friendships and carefully unfolds how the duos inevitably become lovers.

After a while, you may think you're watching a soap opera. Then you realize these are not characters or actors. They are real people - perhaps your friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers who have shared intimate secrets with you. The novel is told from each persons heart with such a style that forces you to take breaks just to digest their innermost feelings. Friends and Lovers grips at your heart strings and delicately ties them in a lovely bow.

This heart-warming love story is also sensuous, without the vulgarity portrayed in some novels and movies designed to hold the audience. Mr. Dickey gently holds the reader's attention and emotions as he meticulously imparts love, laughter, anger and other emotions that naturally arise in a relationship. THE PASSION OF CHAPTER 12 IS SO SWEET AND HOT; IT WILL MAKE YOU WANNA HOLLER (FOR REAL)! Just get a fan and a tall glass of ice water or tea - whichever will help restore your blood pressure to a normal rate!

This is definitely a must read!

I just finished reading this book, and I was sorry to see it end. This is a hard book to put down. I found myself turning down lunch out with co-workers so I wouldn't lose my reading time. I loved Debra and Leonard. What happened with them was a total surprise. I kept trying to think what comedian he may have been based on. Shelby kind of worked my nerves a little bit. But it was obvious that she and Tyrel were meant for each other. I wanted to punch Richard out myself! It's almost hard to see why Shelby would have even considered a man like him at all. Anyway, I totally enjoyed this book, as well as Mr. Dickey's other two that I have read, Milk In My Coffee and Sister, Sister. I swear that man must have been raised by a house full of women. He writes his female characters as a woman would. I found myself checking the back cover a few times to make sure it was a MAN who had written it. I think he is going to be a SERIOUS voice in black writing. His books are fast-paced, based in reality, and as I said, excellent reads! Keep up the good work. As a frustrated writer myself, I hope he doesn't get TOO mad if I steal his style! I can see that this will be another writer that I will instinctively buy everytime a new book is published. Gettin' ready to read Cheaters next!

This was the second book (Tana Hoban's black and white book was the first) that I read to my son when he was a few months old and read it again and again. He was fascinated by the bright pictures in the book and the rhythmic language. Brown Bear brown bear, what do you see? I see a _____ looking at me... As he began to recognize animals and moo like a cow and quack like a duck, the pictures began to take shape for him and he would recognize them for what they were drawn to be. Mr. Carle writes and illustrates wonderful books. My son who is now 3, close to 4, still enjoys the book and he can now easily anticipate which animal is on the next page. I have this book in the board book style and when my son began to "read" for himself, this was one of the books he would frequently reach for. Highly, highly recommended!

This is obviously an all-time classic. I read this book as a child, and now I am reading it to my own children. We bought the Spanish version (sold on Amazon.com) as an introduction to a second language for our children. The simple and straight forward text of this book lends itself wonderfully for this purpose. It is called "Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo, Que Ves Ahi?" It does a beautiful job of teaching animal names, colors, as well as some simple grammar in Spanish. The colorful illustrations are wonderful reinforcements to promote learning with. We could not be happier with our purchase!!

I tried to interest my daughter in books early on (around 5 or 6 months) but she showed very little interest for a long time. She'd bat the book away, look elsewhere, or try to destroy the pages. I read in "The Read Aloud Handbook" that babies like simple pictures, so I picked up "Brown Bear" in the bookstore one day. For the first time, my daughter actually looked at the pages while I read a book. She's now almost 15 months, and she will choose this book over any other--she names the animals for me, and flips the pages back and forth, "reading" the book to herself. It's not the most interesting children's book I've ever read, certainly, but the rhyming and the pictures caught her attention, and got her interested in books. For that, this book is invaluable to me, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

My 14 month old son loves this book. We can tell him "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb" and he runs to his room, climbs on his chair and finds it on his dresser with all his other books. It is definitely his favorite. He loves the "dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum" part. We like that it is short and fun to read. Would definitely recommend it!

I bought this book for my 22 month old god-daughter, a girl who already has a library full of books. This is the one she wants to hear, over and over again. The rhyming is mesmerizing and she helps me pat on the book as it says "One hand, two hands, druming on a drum; dum, ditty, dum, ditty, dum, dum dum." She's at the stage where she's adding to her vocabulary daily, and, thanks to this book, she now says apple. She has a "play ring" that she insists on wearing when we read the book, especially when we get to the pages that read "rings on fingers, rings on thumb." When I first got the book, I was afraid she wouldn't like it, because it isn't really a story. But she loves it. I recommend it whole heartedly.

One of the first books our daughter would sit through from the time she was four or five months old was another Al Perkins classic, "The Nose Book". She's also loved "The Ear Book" since right around the same time. I'd never heard of "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb" until we saw it in the waiting room where my car was being serviced. Sierra LOVED it! We must have read it twenty times, and it really helped to pass the time. When we got to the page that read "dum ditty, dum ditty, whack whack whack!" she giggled out loud and brought smiles to every face in the place. Santa will definitely be bringing this one along in his sack!

We have this book in a small and large size together with anEric Carle videotape that has the story. A young caterpillar is bornand begins to eat his way through the world and through many foods that you child will be able to identify. These foods are eaten on each of the seven days of the week, an added bonus, as your child begins to learn that Sunday is a different day that Monday. The caterpillar gets very fat. He builds a cocoon and then emerges a large beautiful butterfly. My 3 year old does not tire of this story. He learns about nature, food and the days of the week in one absolutely stunningly illustrated book. You can't get much better than this for young children. If you have young children, or if you are looking for a gift for a 4 year old and younger child, this book is highly, highly recommended. Enjoy.

This was one of my favorite books when I was younger. It has very bright colors and that makes the book more enjoyable. It is about a baby caterpillar that gets very hungry and eats so many things. On one day, he eats a lot and the next day he eats more and that keeps happening for a week. Then on the last day of the week he eats so much that he feels like he will be very sick and he takes a rest then makes himself a cocoon. The caterpillar is inside the cocoon for quite a while and gets a good rest then when he comes out he's a...
I enjoy reading this book it is a very good book for kids because it has good illustrations and colors. It is also something that really happens in real life. Caterpillars are really like what they say they are in the book. I would rate this book a 5 because this is a really good book. I would suggest that you read it.

Another great story from Carle. His illustrations are always fantastic, but his stories can be erratic. This on is a dead-on hit. It is the brief story of a caterpillar's feeding frenzy before he makes his metamorphosis into a butterfly. The book introduces children to the days of the week, the names of fruits, and numbers as the caterpillar eats through different foods each day --two pears on Tuesday, three plums on Wednesday, etc.-- until he finally weaves his cocoon and emerges as a beautiful butterfly. This story is a hit every time. Carle's bright colors and clever die-cut artwork never cease to entertain even the youngest child, and there is surely nothing in nature closer to magic than the emergence of a butterfly. This is a beautiful and fun book that will enthrall any child.

Peter Pan is a good adventure/fantasy that kids and adults can enjoy alike. With much exaggeration, it is something kids can enjoy and read into. It's a page-turning book that once you started you can't stop.

Wow! What a great story this is! I picked it up on a whim years ago having enjoyed the Disney cartoon, and when I finally got around to reading it, I couldn't put the darn thing down. This is really exciting stuff! Peter is ten times as irrascible as he is in the toon. One line has always stuck in my head - its where Peter is faced with certain death (I forget exactly what). He thinks to himself that its quite possible he could die, and thinks `That would be the greatest adventure of all!' That line sums of the feel of this book. Imagine being a kid who can never grow up who has the power to fly through a world woven of dreams and fairytales....I learned later that this was probably the sincere wish of the author, James Barrie, who was afflicted with a disease which made it impossible for him to grow. Though an adult in mind, he was the stature and semblance of a child. The warmth of this story has a deep heartfelt resonance in the heart of any boy who has grown up having adventures in his mind. It can't really be described -it has to be read and appreciated. If you love fantasies in the vein of The Never Ending Story and The Wizard of Oz, you will love this book.

Driving with young children in the car quickly convinced me that it was unsafe to not give them something to listen to. After ten years I have collected a large (30+) bag of books-on-tape. I have also loaned them to others and asked for opinions. Peter Pan (read by Wendy Craig) is not only my favorite, but also the favorite of my wife and most of my friends. It is excellent for all ages (4 to 80) and even most hardened teenagers. Humour, presentation, ... a prefect 10.

Cheaters, a novel by Eric Jerome Dickey, is not only wonderfully written, witty, and entertaining, but is also realistic and enlightening as well. Each character has his or her own unique voice. Cheater's, Dickey's sexy and sassy novel, takes readers into the Los Angeles singles scene. Dickey explores all the hassels of everyday life and paints a realistc view of life in general. Dickey takes us on an adventure in betrayal, seduction, heartbreak, and true love. Readers will fall in love with Chante, who is so unlucky when it comes to love; that is until she meets the right man- Stephan. Her emotions are so honest, and she is the epitome of the single woman looking for Mr. Right, only to discover that Mr. right wasn't so right after all. This insightful novel also shows relationships from both the male and female perspective. Chante and her best friends Karen and Tammy are soul sisters, and have stayed close throughout each trial and tribulation each has ungergone. They have been together when each has found love, lost love, gone looking for love, and gave up on love. From the male perspective there's Stephan and his best friends Jake and Darnell, who are living well with good jobs and promising futures. Stephan and Jake attract numerous beautiful women and believe the more the merrier. Darnell is married and stayed faithful, despite rough times until he meets a woman who truly understands him. The characters discover just how far they can push each other, and how in the end, cheaters will get caught, and so the game will end. You will love Cheaters, and will not want to put it down.

Wow! I thought Friends and Lovers was his best book, but Cheaters is head and shoulders above it! EJD did an excellent job of taking me into the world of Stephan, Darnell, Chante, Tammy, Karen, and Jake. The were all funny, interesting characters who did some crazy (and oftentimes self-destructive) things in their quest for love (and sex - let's not forget the sex!) I love EJD's writing style, and he is at the top of his form in this book. I was engrossed in this book from page one, and pretty much ignored everything and everybody until I finished it. One thing I hate about EJD's books is that, they are so engrossing that you end up finishing them too quickly, and then you're wanting more! But, I haven't read Liar's Game yet, so I have something to look forward to.

I'll just say about the outcome of the character's lives in Cheaters: I was VERY happy for how things turned out for Stephan and Chante; I was pleasantly surprised by how things turned out for Darnell (although that part was a bit dramatic and far-fetched); I hope everything worked out just fine for poor Tammy; and I hope Karen and Jake seek professional help RIGHT AWAY! And I like how EJD brings in characters from previous books - I think it's cute. I've been a fan since reading Milk in My Coffee last year (my first EJD book), but just in case you ever happen to read this review, I want to let you know you have a fan for life!

Coming from a person that reads a lot of novels, I feel that I am in a position to rate EJD's lastest novel five stars plus. The thought, and effort entered into the writing of this book, comes through loud and clear. Others should keep in mind, it's only a novel to be enjoyed, and not taken seriously,or equated with anyone's personal situation. The love for another's talent should be met with gratitude. It's stated in other reviews that the author belittles black women. It's just a story born in the author's head, and not necessarily his personal views. How about for entertainment purposes only? That's is why we have choices in what we choose to read. I appreciate good literature, and an author with an imagination. One that can make the reader laugh, cry and feel all of the emotions that are written within the pages. An author that allows his characters to have an imaginable life, would prove to be, in my opinion, talented.