I love the Southern Sisters Mystery series by Anne George. Murder Carries a Torch is the seventh serving of this wonderful series. Sister and Mouse encounter a missing cousin, snake-handlers and two murders on this latest romp thru Birmingham and places nearby. Most authors get stale after writing about the same characters, but not Anne George. The seventh book is as fresh as the first. My only regret is that I'll have to wait another year before another Southern Sister Mystery comes out. I don't know if I can stand the suspense. If you are looking for a lighthearted good read with a heart, you need to read Murder Carries A Torch.

Wow. When I Saw all those "5"'s given this book, I could not imagine giving it anything else but. However, this entry in the Southern Sisters series deserves it. I was somewhat disappointed in Ms. George's last mystery, but this one returns to the homespun, acerbic, and silly humor of the previous entries.
Patricia Anne and Mary Alice get involved in the disappearance of their cousin Pukey Luke's wife, Virginia. When it seems that she's run off with a snake-handling minister, the ladies find themselves kneedeep in rattlesnakes, cover-ups, and murder.
What's so nice about this book, however, is not really the whodunit aspect, but the relationships these people have with each other. The sisters are funny, and their respective hubbies or boyfriends are amusing, too. George has a way of knowing how important family and friends are; how important pets (such as Woofer and Muffin) are; and although the murderer's identity is fairly obvious early on, who cares? We have lots of fun getting there.
A real treat. So sorry to hear that Ms. George has passed away, with one more Southern Sisters mystery left. I know she's with the angels, and thank you for bringing us your talents and time!

Have you ever had your two favourite aunts go away for a year on an adventure....then have them return to share with you the trouble they got themselves into. This is what reading an Anne George Southern Sisters mystery is like. These books make me laugh until I can't breath, bring tears to my eyes and keep me on the edge of my chair until the last tale has been told. Murder Carries a Torch is indeed a visit with those whacky relatives. You've got dead snake-charmers, purple boots, angel-sightings, pukey cousins, disappearing wives and the most loveable sisters in mystery today. The fact that one of the the ladies is now 'wired' is a bonus...the part describing Patricia Anne's experience with e-mail 'spam' is hilarious, and I was smart enough this time round not to have a mouthfull of anything when I read it. Like the rest of the books in this series, Torch is pure heaven. The only downside here is the wait for the next one!

What a lovely book! The title feels welcoming, and comforting, and explains from George Anderson's whole lives experience....profound wonderful things! "Walking in the Garden of Souls" is a very worthy book, worthy of our time and attention.I wanted to read it all at once, and was interested in every word! As things suddenly became apparent, this gift was given to George just for this moment in time, so he could counsel and educate us on different realms of being, all natural and real, to help soothe our souls and heal our hearts!This is a wonderful and thoughtful walk to happiness...a beautiful place that exists for all of us.

George Anderson and Andrew Barone, who is executive director of the George Anderson Grief Support program, and a co-founder of the Foundation for Hope are two names I had never heard of until now but two names I will remember forever for their kindness in this moment! ...

I lost my dearest mom on August 30 so I am among those, George ranks as facing one of life's greatest challenges, grief. This is perhaps what initiated my readings in the area of spirit, to console myself. Nature as science defines it is a vast machine of indifference, having brought forth human consciousness for no reason, and ending same in biological death for no reason. At best a depression philosophy of life.
This book will help those in need or assurance that our loved ones survive death, actually do so. It also is a book written in what I sense is the sincerest of styles. Mr. Anderson does not claim God like status, only that he has a special gift to communicate with conscious beings beyond our material dimension.
I recommend this book to all those who wish to be comforted, but I do not think this book would convince the Amazing Randi type disbelievers.
Georege Anderson is in the star class of psychic mediums and indeed, if George were a fraud would not the skeptics have caught him in his more than 25 years of readings.
Read the book, I think you'll enjoy it. If you've lost a loved one, its a elevator for your own spirit to read.

This book is a must read, not only for those presently experiencing the unbearable pain of loss, but for those searching for an understanding of why life on earth is so often hard, painful and unfair. Without the lessons taught in this book, and others by George Anderson, I would be unable to reason my way through much of the anger and bitterness I absorb by being not only a participant but witness in this world. This book is about the power of hope and faith and the magic of it is not so much the mere words of the message but the way it somehow resonates as true, and somewhere within me, I knew it was. I would recommend people read this book simply to see if the "click" of peace and comfort happens within them as well. Because if it does, you'll be writing online reviews and telling all of your friends also. It's just too good to keep to yourself.

Only if you really know your New York sports would you realize that Marty Appel's in a much more unique position to write a tell-all book about the 1970s Yankees than many other athletes. During his progression over 10 years from Yankees' fan-mail gopher during the Horace Clarke years, to PR director during the 1976 World Series, Appel had once-in-a-lifetime encounters (with the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Mike Burke, Gabe Paul, George Steinbrenner and ... Oscar Gamble) every single day.

"Now Pitching...", finally out in paperback, shows Appel's origins as a Yankees fan when everyone else was rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and how he turned his love for the game into a career (when everyone else was watching the NFL). Most of the book covers the Yankees from 1968 to 1976, Appel's reign. Although many of the stories are familiar to baseball readers from what seems like 100 other books, only Appel is giving you the inside view. Nowhere else will you get such insider detail about Oscar Gamble's infamous haircut, Sparky Lyle's theme music, or George Steinbrenner's management style.

The book flags a little -- only a little -- when Appel leaves the Yankees and makes his mark in other ventures, such as team tennis and local NYC broadcasting. The most interesting part focusses on Appel's brief fish-out-of-water turn with the 1996 Atlanta Olympics organizers.

Marty Appel's been a very lucky guy -- who else gets to be friends with both Mickey Mantle and Billie Jean King? "Now Pitching for the Yankees" is several cuts above your standard baseball autobiography.

When I bought this book I thought I was in for just a number of inside stories on the Yankees. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the ups and downs of the career of Marty Appel. True, much of the book covers his years with the Yankees as their PR director during the 1970's. He was there for the years when the Yankees played in Shea Stadium in 1974 and 1975 and during the time big trades were made involving Bobby Bonds, Mickey Rivers, and Willie Randolph in addition to the signing of Catfish Hunter. He enjoyed working with George Steinbrenner but did have one particular low moment with George following the publication of a Yankee yearbook which contained photos of players with hair longer than what suited the Boss. Marty took a chance one day to ask clubhouse attendant Pete Sheehy to tell him all about the Babe and Pete provided a revealing secret in four words. After leaving the Yankees with Joe Garagiola Jr. Marty worked at a number of baseball related jobs, some of which proved to be more rewarding than others. One of those jobs was with Topps Chewing Gum, and I believe I found a mistake on pages 294-295 where Marty states that Topps began issuing trading cards in 1950 with All-American football players before they did baseball cards. The All-American football cards he refers to were issued in 1955. Topps first issue of baseball cards came in 1951 with the Topps Red Backs and Topps Blue Backs which were cards designed to be used as a baseball game. The low point was his move to Atlanta to work with the Olympic games that were going to be held there. This move proved to be a mistake, but it was a risk that he took. Interesting advice is given to young readers to never take anything for granted, be a good listener, read everything you can, and respect those you deal with. Marty Appel hit a grand slam home run with this book just as he did with an earlier effort on Michael Kelly entitled Slide, Kelly, Slide and in working with Bowie Kuhn on his book entitled Hardball. His latest effort, Now Pitching for the Yankees,is another first rate job.

Oddly enough, the year's best "New York baseball book" is one that you might not have seen: Now Pitching for the Yankees, by Marty Appel. Appel, who spent most of the 1970s working for the Yankees, is a fine writer, a wonderful storyteller, and doesn't shy away from revealing something about himself. The sections of the book concerning his brief periods of non-baseball employment didn't particularly interest me, but the great majority of the book is about Appel's positions in the Yankees PR department and with WPIX-TV, which broadcast Yankees games. Appel clearly adored Phil Rizzuto, then one of the Yankee broadcasters, but that doesn't mean he can't be honest about the Scooter ...

"Phil always did play-by-play, never color. If he was the color commentator, you might as well not have him there at all. His concentration would be gone, he would be saying hello to everyone walking by the broadcast booth, he would be running out for cannolis, and he couldn't add much about the players because he didn't really know them ..."

The problem with most baseball books is that they're written by people who don't write particularly well. But this is Appel's 16th book, and he knows what he's doing. If you want to know what the Yankees were like before (and during) Billy Martin's various turns at the helm, Now Pitching for the Yankees just might be the best place to start. By ROB NEYER

In clear, concise writing, best-selling author Bob George captures the heart of the Gospel. With humor, wit and incredible insight, Bob shares his struggles and conclusions about what it means to be a Christian. The reader quickly grasps how simple living the Christian life is and how man has made it complex. The information in this book has the capability to change a person and his or her thoughts about God. If you are interested in finally being able to comprehend what true Christianity is all about, I highly recommend you read this book

I have been a Christian for 15 years and my faith has been a heavy burden for me for so long and I never understood why. Peace and joy were only words to me. I assumed that I just had not yet achieved "authentic Christianity" and that I had to work to achieve that level before I could know those things that God promises. Boy, was I off base. Bob George's book literally changed my life (and I don't use that phrase liberally or lightly). It showed me the true gospel message that I had been missing for so long. For the first time in my depressed life, God lifted the blackness and I knew what peace and rest meant. I now know more about what salvation REALLY means: true life on earth not just biding our time until we get to heaven. The Lord meets you where you are. Thank God for that AND for Bob George's book. A must read for anyone looking for rest in their faith.

... Bob George doesn't have exclusive access to the truths he illustrates in his book. A Christian doesn't have to read this book to realize the abundant life he or she has in Christ Jesus.

So why do I recommend this book so highly? Mainly because I believe that God has blessed Bob with an incredible ability to communicate spiritual messages to others. He certainly communicated those messages to me. Classic Christianity had a major impact on my life. Before reading this book, I was steeped in religion. I was brought up to believe that "God helps those who help themselves." Only later in life did I learn that the Bible never actually said that, Benjamin Franklin did. So everything I did as a Christian I did out of my own effort, trying to repay God a little for what He did for me by sending His Son to die on the cross. Oh sure, I sometimes asked God to help me when things were going a little rough, but I never considered asking anything of Him when situations were going well or my problems seemed manageable.

I certainly didn't ask for God's help when I read the Bible, and this is why I never came to the conclusions Bob did until after reading Classic Christianity. Bob consistently returns to the scriptures while making his points. He helped me to realize the importance, rather the necessity of relying upon the Holy Spirit for guidance through ALL parts of my life. Once I started to let the Holy Spirit take control of my life, I began to see the Bible from an entirely new vantage point. Everything started to make sense.

Bob's book does exactly what every Christian book should. It leads us back to our relationship with Jesus. Once there, we can receive truth right from the source of truth. Having reread most of the New Testament after reading Classic Christianity, I truly believe that the points made in Classic Christianity are valid. But don't take Bob George's word for it and certainly don't take mine. Read this book and then compare it to the Bible yourself. See if it doesn't have as big of an impact on your relationship with Jesus as it had on mine.

When I first read this mystery, it was the second of a 3-volume series, the last of which had appeared in 1968. Only with the 4th book, _The Cat Who Saw Red_ (1986), did the series take off into its at-least-1-book-a-year mode, and only with the 5th, _TCW Played Brahms_, did Braun introduce Qwill to Moose County.

_TCW Ate Danish Modern_ was the first Qwilleran book I ever read, and although it's best to begin with book 1, _TCW Could Read Backwards_, I can testify that you won't be lost if you pick this up first instead, nor will you spoil the solution of the previous book.

Qwill is the type who'd probably think of himself as a dog person if he weren't a city dweller, but after the death of his landlord, he acquired custody of his landlord's closest companion: Kao K'o Kung, a Siamese familiarly known as Koko. (The original hardcover dustjacket was graced with a photograph of his namesake: the author's feline companion.) The other consequences of his landlord's death led to one of Qwill's 4 problems at the opening of the story: 1) he has to find a new place to live, 2) he wants to be in the Daily Fluxion's city room rather than on the art beat, 3) no current girlfriend, and 4) moths are eating up all his ties - so he runs the risk of being homeless, jobless, womanless, and tieless all at once. (Hey, I didn't say this was Shakespearean tragedy.)

Before Qwill can request a transfer from the managing editor, he's informed that a change of assignment is already lined up: the Fluxion is trying to divert advertising revenue from magazines to their own coffers, and so a new Sunday supplement is coming online, and Qwill will be in charge of its features. The catch? The home furnishing industry is making the advertising experiment - so the Sunday magazine, Gracious Abodes, covers the interior decorating beat. Qwill's horrified reaction is softened since the transfer includes a promotion and raise. Odd Bunsen, the Flux's daredevil photographer, is slower to overcome his resentment at his own transfer.

Up through book 4, this was the standard opening move in a Qwill story: transfer the poor devil from his current assignment to some weird beat as far from the City Room as a veteran crime reporter could imagine, and throw him in at the deep end. As with his previous assignment to the art beat, he finds the professional rivalries unexpectedly interesting.

Consider Lyke and Starkweather, for instance - Starkweather (a rather bland middle-aged executive) handles the business end while Lyke handles clients and the actual decoration jobs. Lyke's charismatic, but the depths beneath his surface charm are somewhat murky. He butters people up left and right, then sneers at them for taking him seriously. His childhood friendship - back before he moved uptown and changed his name - with Jack Baker ended acrimoniously after Jack saved his pennies, went to the Sorbonne, then returned to town as "Jacques Boulonger", the Duxburys' decorator "from Paris". (Jack's background isn't really secret, but his society clients wouldn't like to admit that far from being an exotic novelty, he's a self-made African-American from their own city.) Jack even rubbed in his success at having taken away Lyke's old money clients by moving into the Villa Verandah, where Lyke lives, but in a nicer apartment on a higher floor. :) Lyke does well enough, though, with the new money clients out in Lost Lake Hills.

By chance, Qwill starts with Lyke when seeking a big society name for the cover of Gracious Abodes' first issue, and thus draws the Taits. At first Mrs. Tait's sharp tongue seems the worst feature of the household, and Tait's obsession with his jade collection the oddest. Then the morning after the first issue of Gracious Abodes hits the street, Tait's jade collection is stolen, his wife is dead of a heart attack, and the police - and the Fluxion's competitor, the Morning Rampage - are asking why the Flux seems to be printing blueprints for burglary. (One of the elements dating the story is the Fluxion's policy of always printing names and addresses, but as you can see, its logical consequences come home to roost.)

Each of the first few editions of _Gracious Abodes_ is plagued by a different catastrophe, and Qwill faces reassignment to the church editor's beat if he can't break the jinx. Are some or all of the incidents related - and if so, who's behind them?

I recommend the unabridged audio read by George Guidall over the book on its own, although I enjoy that too. Scenes like Odd Bunsen's drunken pursuit of Koko across the balconies of the Villa Verandah must be heard to be appreciated fully. :)

This is the second book in "The Cat Who..." Series. The relationship between Koko and Qwilleran is more friendly and more familiar than that in the first book where they first met ("The Cat Who Could Read Backwards"). You'll see that if you read this series in sequence. This second book also describes how Yum Yum, the second Siamese is adopted as a new member of the family. I recommend you to read this series in sequence.

I still don't think it is very good as a whodunit. But it's a LOVELY tale which makes me strongly feel to meet Koko and Qwilleran again and again. As far as I feel so, I'll read this series furthermore. And I'm looking forward to what role Yum Yum will play.

This is an overall good book, but I like the 1st one better, but that's just because I am interested in art. This is the book in which Yum Yum joined them, who was owned by the family in which the house was robbed. Who robbed the house? Well, you'll just have to find out for yourself. In this mystery, Koko devoloped a habit of eating furniture and Qwill's ties, and helps Qwill find whodunit by clawing clues in the dictionary. Yes, it's true Qwill has to write a magazine on interior decorating, which is not my favourite subject, yet that only, to me, makes the story more interesting. Buy this now, but only if you read the 1st book before.

As a classic account of Ouspensky's encounter with Gurdjieff, thence with a disguised version of the Sufi world, this book is remarkable and worth reading as reminder of the many spiritual disguises of one and the same potential self-consciousness of men of all eras, but as an indication of a spiritual path actually existing it deserves a severe caution, if not a skull and cross bones, as on a jar of poison. Beware of it, and the people who claim to exemplify it after so many years. Disappointing, but necessarily so. Try reading a similar work such as Idries Shah's The Sufis, and note the arbritrary nature of all the content (by and large) describing about the same type of predestigation of method, always the same wiseacred method in the end described plainly in Buddhist sutras on vipassana. The question of the esoteric belongs to authoritarian worlds in a state of hiding, one that is unnecessary now. Bright-eyed candidates of liberal bent for this path created from thin air from a mess of theosophical pottage might consider the reactionary nature of this sage Gurdjieff, the book's account of the trail of the Whites heading south at the onset of revolution, and the plain fact that Gurdjieff, for all his fancy occultism, was a de Maistrean sort of guy, who disapproved of the abolition of slavery, and liked a submissive relationship in disciples. The grounds of spiritual authority subtlely suggested to induce the impulse to surrender the will as one's freedom are spurious, the more so if Gurdjieff in Ouspensky's own view was not even an honest man. This work belongs to an ancient world, and is misleading because it seems to draped in the esoteric and a touch of the modern, when in fact the cosmology is a pastiche of ancient Indian Samkhya transformed in magician smoke. The verdict on a method of spirituality should be the number of its successes, and it was the Indian teacher Rajneesh who noted that this path has never produced a result, realized men. The reason is that the terms described, both as philosophy and method, are too arbritrarily exotic, and finally under suspicion of being made up and leave enthusiasts permanently frozen at the starting point. To concoct a mystery of the enneagram and call it esoteric wisdom takes a peculiar type of brazen hucksterism, since the whole notion is surely a complete fiction, not to say a put on. One of the warnings of Buddhism is, dont' get fancy, and beware of speculation. These vices of metaphysical salesmanship are grimly pervasive in this work and leave desperate seekers tying their head in knots trying to compute self-remberbering or produce an alchemy of higher hydrogens in an addlepated brain. Be ye Lamps unto yourelves, the Buddha warned. Before becoming the piece in another all too tricky play designed to stun the wary, and reveal nothing at cost, it is well to remember the warning. And it is worth remembering Ouspensky's starting point in Tertium Organon with its solid Kantian beginning and metaphysical austerity, all thrown away in this beguiling path that left its own expositor with nothing. Anyway, Gurdjieff is curiously unique, do not therefore grant this to those who claim his teaching. As for the occult demos claimed, either they are fake, and we have fraud, or they are genuine, and we have a fallen yogi indulging in left-hand path skullduggery.

Not one for the schizophrenics, this is the literary equivalent of a Lysergic Acid/MDMA cocktail - Heady stuff indeed. It's worth reading for the story alone. The author and his beady eyed guru/hypnotist friend were two of the most darkly fascinating characters the twentieth century had to offer. Anyone with an interest in the roots of new age religion should read this book first. Also if you're thinking of becoming a spiritual leader - this is your handbook. Those after a a bit of gentle mysticism are probably best of doing a bit of yoga or tai-chi, those after a lot could do worse than a bit of this - but don't follow leaders and watch your parking meters!

At the very end of his life, Ouspensky seemed to repudiate "the System", as he understood it, although glassy-eyed disciples in that time and this try to rationalize that fact away. Perhaps he realized that any systematic approach to developing our consciousness is impossible, since if we are on a road with a known destination that destination can only be our own projection of what we imagine it to be. No matter. The ability of this man Ouspensky to think systematically was indeed his great strength, and it lent all his writing a clarity and throughness simply unmatched in all of twentieth century "occultism". Nowhere did he need it more than in this reporting of the early teachings of Gurdjieff, when that particular unique idiot was at the zenith of his own development. This book is more important than any of the junk they peddle in the various humanities departments of any of our indoctrinal institutions; it is even a contender for book of the century, at least among those who are familiar with the hidden literature of our species, for it exists at the boundary line between the place where words are at their limit and the place Ouspensky may have finally reached, where words can never go. And rest assured that it nevertheless communicates almost through osmosis some of these things much better than this abstruse little review can.

Lilith is typical MacDonald. It is often tedious. It can leave you guessing as to what exactly is going on. It can leave you downright frustrated with the man. Yet it has moments of brilliance that make the whole endeavor more than worth the struggle. Lilith is one of MacDonald's most mature books. It is much darker than works such as The Princess and the Goblin or At the Back of the North Wind. It has some affinity with the works of MacDonald's friend, Lewis Carroll. At its core, it is an allegory for MacDonald's anti-Calvinist notions of Universalism. For all its obtuseness and periodical preachiness, it is a fine story in the end (I liken it to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, which, for me, was a pain to read--but when it was over I loved the story). Just an aside--you should really read this book and then go on to C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. The two books go very well together.

I don't think I even know how many times I've read this novel as it is truely my favorite. Each and every time I do, however, I see something I missed or understand something about the world I didn't understand or see previously. I am an avid fantasy reader but no author of the hundreds of fantasy novels I've read can even touch the world that George MacDonald creates in Lilith. The fact that it was written in the 1800's boggles the mind considering the depth that the author goes into theory of parallel universe and basic perception of "who" you are. From a Christian perspective, I think the word "pure" is what comes to mind often when reading this novel or Phantasies. George MacDonald also has several childrens stories which my nephews love, The Light Princess for instance. Whether your reading for spiritual reasons or strictly for a wonderous journey in the world of fantasy George MacDonald is, as C.S. Lewis said, "The Master".

The real _masterpieces_ of fantasy, as opposed to the "entertaining reads," are not numerous. This is one of the masterpieces. It is not a perfect book, but it belongs in the company of the greatest, such as

The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion (Tolkien); Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, and Till We Have Faces (Lewis); The Man Who Was Thursday (Chesterton); A Wizard of Earthsea (Le Guin); The Owl Service (Garner); Titus Groan and Gormenghast (Peake)... books of that caliber.

Don't miss MacDonald's magnificent tales such as "The Day Boy and the Night Girl" and "The Golden Key."

Read MacDonald's Lilith. If you are so moved, read it in conjunction with the detailed, free study guide available at the MacDonald "Golden Key" website:

There are times that I think my life was or still is hard. Well, I'm a black female who grew up in a middle-class home with two teachers as parents. College was as automatic as sleeping and eating. But, for these young men in the book "The Pact", college was as uncertain as winning the lottery. I always knew that our young black boys growing up in the inner-city had it super hard, but this book allowed me to see another side of our young brothas. They all have dreams as little kids, even though they don't see anyone in their neighborhood to emulate. Somehow, someway, Sampson Davis, Rameck Hunt and George Jenkins all found the determination to succeed and become doctors. Their positive story is proof that just one person can make a difference in a kid's life. Everyone needs someone to look up to; someone to follow.

We all have gifts we can share. Read this book and feel blessed that someone in your life took the time to mentor you and be there for you; not everyone has that in their lives. I am so proud of these young men! Not only are they smart and positive, but they are cute too! What a great combination! God has truly blessed them and their family.

What a refreshing book. Thanks to Tavis Smiley for recommending it on the Tom Joyner Show.

"The Pact" is an incredible book! I just finished reading the remarkable journey completed by Drs. Sam Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt. It's an easy, quick read ~250 pages.

If you're not familiar with their story, they are 3 young, African-American men from Newark that establish a pact at 17-years old to become doctors. Over the years, they run into many obstacles (peer pressure, arrest, finances, and family issues) that tend to dissuade so many young people from pursuing their dream. With the "I got your back" support of each other, mentors they encountered throughout their journey, and God they become doctors despite how many people had presumed their future would turn out.

Dr. George Jenkins, probably the most focused in the group, knew at a very young age that he wanted to be a dentist. In high school, the three friends attend a college presentation offering full scholarships to minority students interested in the medical field. Knowing that neither he nor his friends could afford college THIS OFFER would be their ONLY way to attend college...the formation of the pact.

Surprisingly, after completing college and med school, Sam and Rameck were still unsure if they wanted to be doctors. Sam saw business/management as his future and Rameck wanted to be an actor (he'll settle on being a rapper). (If I didn't know the outcome, I would have been in suspense until the bitter end waiting to learn if they became doctors.) The death of an important person in each of their lives confirmed that medically helping others is what they were meant to do in life.

If you're in the education field or work closely with children in your community this is an excellent book to pick up when you...

- feel like what can I do to get through to this person
- need a testimony that success is not by luck but achieved through faith, perseverance, and support from others
- need a roadmap to better mentor a person in need

"The Pact" is an amazing story of inspiration and motivation to get (primarily) black teens to see beyond their environment, current situation, and look ahead with a plan for tomorrow. "The Pact" also displays the need for adults to begin mentoring children before they reach their teens. The book concludes with the doctors providing the "how-to's" to make a pact work.

This book is a must read for ALL ADOLESCENT MALES!! It is a strong testimony to the power of friendship and perseverance despite circumstances. Each young man had someone in their family who directly or indirectly motivated them to persevere. They had to make some very uncomfortable choices, but were able to keep their "eyes on the prize." Affirmative Action programs continue to serve a real purpose in our society. This book has become a mandatory read in my classes. To the one who still holds to the "...because I'm Black" statement. My question to you is "How long are you going to be Black?"

"There is little to be satisfied in reading this book"?? I couldn't disagree more. Bleak House left a profound impression on me, and was so utterly satisfying a reading experience that I wanted it never to end. I've read it twice over the years and look forward to reading it again. Definitely my favorite novel.

I don't know what the previous reviewer's demands are when reading a novel, but mine are these: the story must create its world - whatever and wherever that world might be - and make me BELIEVE it. If the novelist cannot create that world in my mind, and convince me of its truths, they've wasted my time (style doesn't matter - it can be clean and spare like Orwell or verbose like Dickens, because any style can work in the hands of someone who knows how to use it). Many novels fail this test, but Bleak House is not one of them.

Bleak House succeeds in creating a wonderfully dark and complex spider web of a world. On the surface it's unfamiliar: Victorian London and the court of Chancery - obviously no one alive today knows that world first hand. And yet as you read it you know it to be real: the deviousness, the longing, the secrets, the bureaucracy, the overblown egos, the unfairness of it all. Wait a minute... could that be because all those things still exist today?

But it's not all doom and gloom. It also has Dickens's many shades of humor: silliness, word play, comic dialogue, preposterous characters with mocking names, and of course a constant satirical edge. It also has anger and passion and tenderness.

I will grant one thing: if you don't love reading enough to get into the flow of Dickens's sentences, you'll probably feel like the previous reviewer that "...it goes on and on, in interminable detail and description...". It's a different dance rhythm folks, but well worth getting used to. If you have to, work your way up to it. Don't start with a biggie like Bleak House, start with one of his wonderful short pieces such as A Christmas Carol.

Dickens was a gifted storyteller and Bleak House is his masterpiece. If you love to dive into a book, read and enjoy this gem!

This is the second book by Dickens I have read so far, but it will not be the last. "Bleak House" is long, tightly plotted, wonderfully descriptive, and full of memorable characters. Dickens has written a vast story centered on the Jarndyce inheritance, and masterly manages the switches between third person omniscient narrator and first person limited narrator. His main character Esther never quite convinces me of her all-around goodness, but the novel is so well-written that I just took Esther as she was described and ran along with the story. In this book a poor boy (Jo) will be literally chased from places of refuge and thus provide Dickens with one of his most powerful ways to indict a system that was particularly cruel to children. Mr. Skimpole, pretending not to be interested in money; Mr. Jarndyce, generous and good; Richard, stupid and blind; the memorable Dedlocks, and My Lady Dedlock's secret being uncovered by the sinister Mr. Tulkinghorn; Mrs. Jellyby and her telescopic philanthropy; the Ironmaster described in Chapter 28, presenting quite a different view of industralization than that shown by Dickens in his next work, "Hard Times." Here is a veritable cosmos of people, neighbors, friends, enemies, lovers, rivals, sinners, and saints, and Dickens proves himself a true master at describing their lives and the environment they dwell in. There are landmark chapters: Chapter One must be the best description of a dismal city under attack by dismal weather and tightly tied by perfectly dismal laws, where the Lord Chancellor sits eternally in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Chapter 32 has one of the eeriest scenes ever written, with suspicious smoke, greasy and reeking, as a prelude to a grisly discovery. Chapter 47 is when Jo cannot "move along" anymore. This Norton Critical is perhaps the best edition of "Bleak House" so far: the footnotes help a lot, and the two Introductions are key to understanding the Law system at the time the action takes place, plus Dickens' interest in this particular topic. To round everything off, read also the criticism of our contemporaries, as well as that of Dickens' time. "Bleak House" is a long, complex novel that opens a window for us to another world. It is never boring and, appearances to the contrary, is not bleak. Enjoy.

After years without picking up a novel by Dickens (memories of starchy classes at school), I decided to plunge into "Bleak House", a novel that had been sitting on my bookshelf for about ten years, waiting to be read. Although I found it heavy going at first, mainly because the style is so unfamiliar to modern readers, after about ten pages I was swept up and carried off, unable to put the hefty tome down until I had finished it. This book is a definite classic. The sheer scope of the tale, the wit of the satire (which could still be applied to many legal proceedings today) and the believable characters gripped me up until the magnificent conclusion. One particularly striking thing is the "cinematic" aspect of certain chapters as they switch between different angles, building up to a pitch that leaves the reader breathless. I can't recommend "Bleak House" too highly. And I won't wait so long before reading more Dickens novels.

The book presents a richly interwoven series of stories with complex, mind boggling intertwinings. The novel resembles a giant jigsaw puzzle with each piece bringing more insight into the one master jigsaw puzzle which is life itself.

The novel describes the life of the residents of a Paris apartment building. It is densely packed with very fine details about the people and places, making it a slow reading. Also, it behooves the reader to remember as much as possible of whatever he reads so that he can correlate the various pieces of the puzzle (i.e., the novel). Which is also a reason to read the novel again and again (probably once every year) to enjoy it thoroughly. It resembles Tolstoy's War and Peace in this regard.

In short, one can rarely expect to come across another novel like this. A must read for everyone who wants to try new things.

Wonderful! I have come across a book that I can read and re-read every year and which will always delight, inspire and astound me.

I won't bother with the plot or scope of the novel, the details in the main Amazon page sum them up very well. What I will say is that this is one of the few experimental novels that actually works and is a joy to read.

Hundreds of stories within stories, every other page delights you with another tale, any one of which could be expanded to make a whole novel in themselves. A complex book which can be frustrating at times but which is ultimately rewarding as it actually delivers on its promise. Perec inticately weaves together the lives of many people into this wonderful novel in an attempt to show live how it really is - complicated, full of coincidence, multi-layered, sad, tragic, beautiful and ultimately futile.

Sometimes you read a book and it makes you realise how much you are wasting your life. If Perec could write something as wonderful as this I should get of my arse and try something too!

Please read this book, it is astounding.

I'd like to add a little comment to those of the 11 reviewers. I do share the rating of 5-stars with them.

Georges Perec became a revelation for me for I thought I was about to read a thriller (in the sense of suspense). Certainly, suspense is but one of so many ingredients in Life..., but there is much more in this book;it is impossible for me to classify it. In fact it doesn't need classification.

Perec's chapters, devised as pieces of a gigantic puzzle, are chapters of life itself. He has created a gallery of the most memorable characters ever found in a novella (he shares this with León Tostoy). Who can forget Mme Altamont, or Mr Bartlebooth, or Valene, or the concierge? They are extracted from life and one can only believe that there is a Mme Altamont around the corner.

The parisian apartment building acquires life by the life of its inhabitants. Perec is a ironic, cultivated, encyclopedic, amusing, and a semiotician of writers. He is a masterly story-teller. Life, in his view, is that reality which is sad, hopeless, absurd, with no essence at all. He is deeply rooted in French existentialism.

This book made me understand many things, but mainly not to lose time in non-value added activities. Life is so short, says Perec. Time is a constant and a systematic in the book. Time, time, time. Actually it ends: IT IS THE TWENTY-THIRD OF JUNE NINETEEN SEVENTY-FIVE AND IT IS EIGHT O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING.

And then, one learns that he died at 46. Life was ephemeral for him as he forsaw it in his novella. I have the feeling that he wrote as a possesed, said to the world what he had to say and said good-bye