"Left Bank" was a wonderful find! I love thrillers and Colgrove's book didn't disappoint. It took about eight pages to hook me. The author writes in such a visual style that you can easily picture yourself in France.

This one has everything I want in a thriller: Suspense, Sex, Exotic locales and an involving plot filled with great characters.

Paul Manning is an appealing, action-oriented character who is stuck in an impossible situation. I lost track of time whenever I sat down to read about his dilemma. When reading "Left Bank", I was transported to the streets of Monaco and Paris along with Paul Manning. The ending was great and I want more!

David Colgrove takes us to the darker side of the "City of Lights" in this interntional thriller. The suspense builds upon itself from the first chapter until the last page. From beginning to end, this plot driven, involving, psycholological and political suspense read, is a page turner! If you enjoyed Nelson DeMille's latest, great book, "The Lion's Game,", you are the reader who will love running with Paul Manning through the streets and alleys of Paris.

When Logan, my 22 month old grandson, stays the night, he says "book" and points to the bookshelf that holds this treasure. I love the rythm of the story, and the soft detail of the pictures. When my son was little I read this story to him. The pictures remind me of what he looked like as a little boy.The book is a favorite of mine and I am looking for a copy to give to my son for Fathers Day. I want to keep the one I have. (It has no cover and is missing the last few pages.)Nana Sherrie

This was my sons' favorite children's book during their formative years. Intended to be read as though playing a snare drum, it uses a variety of rhythms to stay fresh throughout and hold a child's interest. Two of my sons became percussionists later in life! It also introduces the youngster to a plethora of mostly domestic or farm animals, as well as the sounds they make. This is an excellent learning tool for the young mind, especially for boys since they seem to identify with the main character better.

This is a story that was read to me many times when I was little, and just a few days ago, I discovered it collecting dust at the top of a book shelf. The memories started flooding back as I read about the story of these animals taking matters into their own hands, and looking for a better life for themselves. I recommend this book for anyone with small children, and they're looking for something wholesome and entertaining for the nightly bedtime story. The illustrations go along wonderfully with each caption to help the child develop imagery skills for later on in life, which is another reason why I like this book. If you're lucky enough to find a copy of this book floating around somewhere, I strongly advise picking it up! Remember, it all starts with a boy and his drum....

This book is a visual map of the castle that is a must for every history/romance/medieval buff. It can be too conplicated to imagine all of the inner and outer structures of a working castle. Lee's work can give the reader a firm foundation to build on with his fantastic illustrations.

Amazing! Alan Lee is an incredable painter/illustrator. His work in this books brings to life not only the Castles he paints, but the people and the time in which these castles are located. The work spans historical as well as fictional locations, all of which make me wish that there was a print store right next door. This book is perfect for children and adults alike. Awesome, in the truest meaning of the word.

When I first read this book when it came out way back in 86, I was blown away. The artwork was the best I had ever seen in a book like this, and the retelling of different myths to go along with each castle presented read like a fantasy story for history buffs. It covered classic celtic strongholds, all the stories surrounding the Arthuranian mythos, faerie castles, and those fortresses of the likes of Ghormenghast and Edgar Allen Poe's House of Usher. I would have to reccommend this book for all those lovers of fantasy and of great art.

Gravity Golf really works!

This book is chock-full of information on the most energy-efficent way to swing a golf club. I've read this book many, many times and the more you read it and do the practice drills, the more you will understand the information that David Lee presents. Also, the video tapes that Lee sells from his infomercials and web site are helpful in understanding the training system.

Ernie Els and Fred Couples are "pure gravity" players. Many, many of the other top money winners on the PGA Tour are graviy players too. The problem is that most of these first-class golfers know how to swing using the Gravity Golf "mechanisim", but these golfers have difficulty explaining how they hit the golf ball so far and straight with so little effort using this mechainism. David Lee has developed the traing system to learn how to swing like Els and Couples.

This book must be re-read many, many times in conjunction with the practice drills. The video tapes that David Lee sells are helpful too. The best of all, go to a Gravity Golf school. Then, read and re-read the book and the Gravity Golf system will become crystal clear.

I belive that twenty years from now, this teaching methodology will be the "industry standard" way that golfers will trained--novice to Tour caliber. Many "copy-cat" golf instructors have already adopted many of the teaching techniques originally developed by David Lee.

Be prepared to allocate the time to hit many practice balls. Golf will become fun and practice, using the drills, will become informative. You will learn how and why good shots happen and why bad shots happen. The Gravity Golf system is not an instant miricle, but it is the "real thing", when it comes to the golf swing.

I am a Gravity Golf believer!

If you read Jack Nicklaus' books about his swing technique and didn't quite get it, take a look at Gravity Golf. It clarifies Jack's ambiguities beautifully and fills in a lot of the physics in laymen's terms. Best of all are the 4 enormously effective practice drills for getting your subconsious brain to "program" the correct swing for you. It's almost creepy...suddenly after a couple 1-foot and 1-arm practice sessions you can magically do the regular swing correctly. My main swing thought nowadays is "don't think". You'll be astounded how little effort it takes to hit the ball 250+ yards with this swing. (One caveat: The first 3 chapters are a tad lame. Don't give up on it without reading chapters 4, 5, and 6 where the gold is.)

Reading about and visualizing the type of mechanics that David describes is the fresh approach to a solid and consistent golf swing that everyone needs. His approach to the components of the golf swing are truly amazing, and the simplicity with which they can be executed is even more amazing.

A riveting account of Jeanne Lee's personal journey into the misunderstood world of Alzheimer's. Her story is sad, but allows the reader to get inside the mind of someone whose fears, frustration and worries about this mind-tangling disease provides a road map for us to be forever living in the moment. - Larry James, CelebrateLove.com, Author, "How to Really Love the One You're With"

ook Review

Just Love Me, My Live Turned Upside-down by Alzheimer's
by Jeanne L. Lee

I think this book is a wake up to those of us who share in the care with someone with Alzheimer's. Jeanne tells it like it really is in words we can all understand. Jeanne has given me permission to use a few excerpts so that we can all begin to realize just what it feels like to those who have this horrible disease. Through reading this book, you will learn why you as a carepartner or caregiver need to have more patience and remember that it is the disease and not the person you love. Believe me, the person who has Alzheimer's or another dementia sure didn't ask for it. It is up to us, the TAB's (temporarily able brained) to learn to move into their world as best we can as they cannot, try as they may, always be able to cope in our world.

I offer my sincere thanks to Jeanne for sharing her life with us in order to help all of us have more understanding.

Page 26
Did you ever take a full minute to decide which way a key goes in the hole? Maybe once, but five times a day? Or look in a phone book and not know which letter follows which letter? Try to add three numbers together and get five different answers? Walk into someone's house that you have been in many times and take ten minutes to get oriented as to whose house you are in, and what you are doing there? Watch a TV movie and forget what it's about in the middle? Read for hours and hours, having enjoyed it while you were reading it, but then it's all gone? Ride the bus and forget where you're going, and have to hunt through your weekly agenda to see where you're going and why? That is, if you remember you have somewhere to check. Lose or misplace something, not just occasionally, but four or five times in an hour? I can misplace my pen ten times in an hour. I can misplace my glasses, even though I have a pair in my purse, another pair in the bedroom and another "wandering" pair. All of a sudden they're all wandering, and then they're all in my purse. I clean up the same pile of stuff four or five times before it gets where it's going, and I used to be the best organizer in the world. Now it takes me two hours to prepare before I go anywhere.

Page 32
Something that I also find disturbing, especially with groups, is that I have to frequently interrupt, because, if I don't, by the time they're finished with their story I've forgotten what I wanted to add. I have to get people to understand that they can remember their story, and after I've said what I need to say, before I forget it, I'll shut up and let them finish. So, I either interrupt or lose what I was going to say, and what I have to say may be important to the conversation. This is hard for someone like me who was taught not to interrupt when someone else is talking, but it's the only way now. It's an awful feeling, but if people were more aware that this is the case for someone with Alzheimer's that would help. For those who want to say something and can't find the right words, it makes it seem like you have no intelligence. Combine that with feeling rude for having to interrupt, well, sometimes you just feel it's easier to let the thought go. That is why so many withdraw and don,t talk. But I do not think people should have to do that.

A Note from Jeanne Lee
Jamie My purpose in writing the book was to help people. You have my permission to use what you see fit. Anything short of cover to cover is open to you. I admire you for the ribbon and if I can help please let me do so. I am on a journey for earlystage awareness and moving right along. I hope to do a greyhound bus tour from LA to Portland stopping at towns to lecture and do book signings. If that turns out OK and the funds last I will do Portland to Vancouver BC. I do not have the support of oour archaic AD association so this is a one woman challenge to open the eyes of all the islands. I even borrowed $6000 from a friend to represent the United States as a person with dementia at the International Alzheimer's Convention in Barcelona. I do not want to toot my own horn but just to show you that I really am an advocate. Aloha Jeanne
Thank you so much for The Ribbon.
Jeanne L. Lee
Author: "JUST LOVE ME"
My Life Turned Upside-down by Alzheimer's

One could say that this book has a misleading subtitle: It would appear that Jeanne L. Lee's life has turned right side up because of her diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
She says it like it is for her, and much of what she describes is true for this reader who has come to grips with his own diagnoses of Alzheimer's, unipolar depression, obesity, kidney failure, alcoholism, emphysema, and now diabetics, all within the last two years.
Page after page she describes the various conditions of depression, alcoholism, dropping, forgetting, losing words, endless tests, denial by physicians, et al,, which plague all of us.
But thanks to the diagnosis, she is able to confront the denial of early continued sexual abuse, her own and her father's alcoholism, and multiple relationships.
The book is jumpy, and disjointed, but that is the nature of this species of dementia. Many of us demented ones have a huge sigh of relief, when all the eliminations are done, and the only culprit remaining is Alzheimer's,
This is not a book for those professionals who are determined to establish that those of us with the disease have no valid information to share with them. This is not a book for those who are only interested in working with the caregivers. This is not a book for those who say why do anything meaningful, since we won't remember the patterns anyhow. This is not a book for those who flaunt memory improvement exercises which deny the loss of the ability to learn. This is not a book for those who talk, but do not listen. It is a book for the rest of us.
Her main title says it all for this ALZer: "Just Love Me." But this love comes at a high price in the face of vincible ignorance.
We will talk, even if the words are jumbled. We will read, even if the continuity disappears. We will listen, even if the sentences disappear into a black hole. But most of all, we will love, even when we are not loved by those around us.
Lee has shown us the way out of our tunnels of loneliness and despair.
Lee says: "I know there are many people out there who neeeed to hear from others, like themselves, that it's okay to goof up; it's okay to do stupid things; it's part of what's happening to this body and brain. But it doesn't have to be all bad. There is so much good, and so much you can still do. So what if you can't remember somebody's name. You can still say hello to a little old lady. You can still give flowers to soneone . You can still look at the ocean [like I did on a Senir Retreat last week] and say, 'Oh God, I'm so lucky.'" And thanks to this book, that is exactly how I will spend my time remaining. Thank you Jeanne.

This book left me spellbound. Drotar has a true talent for telling tales that move on several levels. A river journey in Southeast Asia becomes a backward journey in time... Riding a horse through the Adirondacks leads to deeper insights about the precarious nature of our daily lives... A ski expedition reveals truths about the frightening transitions we all face. The eighteen essays, categorized by season, span the globe, yet they all affirm our connection with nature and with each other. And, somehow, Drotar manages to accomplish this with without ponderous prose or heavy-handing philosophizing. Tuck this book in your backpack for thoughtful reading during your own travels, or keep it on your bedside table to inspire your dreams.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Drotar whisks us around the world in these captivating essays, riding an icebreaker in Finland at one moment, a mountain bike in Wales the next. Every person, every place, every event reveals so much more to Drotar than it does to most of us. Ski runs become metaphors for life's challenges. A night sky helps Drotar discover the planet beneath his feet. The author dances thru time and space in a way that bewitches the reader and enriches his travel experience. Struggles for democracy in Myanmar--and America--are reflected in a prism where time, Zen and Buddhist like, flows backwards. Landowners in the pacific northwest embrace redwoods and a new ethic. His characters come to life on the page: Cowboys at a roundup in Wyoming, rangers with eagle eyes in the Catskills, children in Quito carrying bundles of dignity amidst urban squalor.

Few writers can weave their thoughts and meaning into a travel experience without destroying the tempo or becoming preachy, but Drotar accomplishes both.

Steep Passages took me on a wild ride through nature, exotic places, and fascinating people. There were times when I felt as though I was right along side Drotar, feeling the cool winter wind on my face or tasting the salty sea air. The descriptions in the book are so intensely rich and full of life that at times you can't believe that one person has experienced what so many only dream of. From chapter to chapter, Steep Passages keeps you craving for more and more and in the mean while Drotar's inner messages on life, often make you reflect on whom you are and what you're doing with yours. It's a book that I could read over and over again and each time immerse myself into a scene that many of us only dream about feeling, tasting and believing.

From the years 1968-1976, I was working, playing acoustic bass, under the name of Richard Youngstein. In Paul's very hip, very open book, he refers to playing a cool gig in Boston at the (long defunct) Jazz Workshop for one week with his long time drummer, Barry Altschul (whom I went to high school with in the Bronx) and "some bass player." Obviously Paul didn't remember my name, even though I recorded half an album with him on Polydor, called "The Paul Bley Synthesizer Show," produced by Orin Keepnews, and another album with his ex-wife, Annette Peacock, for French Polydor, that I heard had two titles, "Blood," and "Revenge." If anyone has a copy of either LP PLEASE let me know -I never got one & never heard it! Anyway, I also recorded under that name with Carla Bley & JCOA on "Escalator Over The Hill." I was very active in those years, playing w/Ros Rudd, Bill Dixon, Robin Kenyetta, Karl Berger, etc. I moved to LA late in 1976 and switched careers kind of, and names. I got my doctorate and license in psychology(like my late mentor, the great bassist David Izenzon)and have been in the healing field ever since. I had a trio/quartet "Erotic Zone," for some years and played periodically. Anyway, I am the same person, whether the old Richard Youngstein or the more recent Dr. Noah Young. Just thought I'd give a name to "some bass player" on the Jazz Workshop gig with mssrs. Bley and Altschul. And....Paul's book is awesome. Truly one of the giants of jazz and a priviledge to have made music with.(Write me at: Noazarc22@aol.com)

Although Paul Bley isn't given anywhere near the recognition he deserves in America, his influence on contemporary players is deep and profound, going from Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett through to nearly any younger jazz piano player today who is worthwhile. His lasting contribution is his demostration of what can be done with total freedom now that all the rules have been broken. You don't have to stay inside or outside with tonality or rhythm, being free means being able to go to either direction or any place in between.

This highly entertaining book tells his complete story from gigging in Canada to the present day. Some of the most compelling stories come from the exciting days of the October Revolution of 1964 and the formation of the the Jazz Composers Guild. There's also some great stuff on his involvement in the birth of performance synthesizers. But there's lots of great little stories including how Lucille Ball saved his life!

bley is as brilliantly understated in words as he is in music, and anyone familiar with his music or the many musicians he has played with (or anyone at all into jazz) will find a lot of stories in this book -- candid, funny, and illuminating. he never stays in one place for long, but always seems to end up somewhere interesting, which is why it's impossible to stop reading. not to mention the incredible photographs. the book may be too short by half, but you get the picture...

I was introduced to Bohm through his video dialogue with Krishnamurti in The transformation of Man. He is one of the most honest, clear thinkers I have ever read. This book is really a transcript of a group discussion of thought with Bohm at the head. If you ever wonder why you get angry for "no reason" or why people get so upset over ideas, then read this book. And if you have an insight into the way thought works, you'll never be the same.

This book is the result of Bohm's collaboration with Krishnamurti, which lasted for over twenty years. David Bohms background as a proven physicist enables him to explain K.'s thought to the West in a more systematic, clear fashion that even K. could. This book was put out after Krishnamurti's death, and so it represents the results of their collaboration from Bohm's point of view. The implications of this analysis of thought are profound. It out does phenomenology in depth as well as it's avoidance of the hideous academic jargon. The only other thinker to take as in-depth a look at "Thought" is Rudolph Steiner (see 'Intuitive Thinking As A Spiritual Path'). This book brings a focus and clarity to a subject that never quiet graduated beyond the experimental dialogues between Bohm and Krishnamurti. Bohm also took the dialogue format (very similiar to Socratic) as his methodology (see his book on communication). Bohm felt that Krishnamurti's greatest contribution was his ideas about the "observer and the observed" and the nature of thought. Bohm had already had intimations of these ideas in sub-atomic physics. Excellent stuff!

A superb book with Bohm investigating the nature of thought in all its subtlety through a dialogue approach used by Bohm in several other books. Bohm's remarkable way of dialogue investigation assumes nothing except his internal investigations of his own thought processes which are explained in a manner allowing free discussion, ie nothing is assumed, set in its ways and everything is open to question, similarly he doesn't create any sophisticated terminology which could confuse the issue or the people who are asking the questions. The talks are in the words of every day people and use their everyday experiences for understanding. Thought is dissected in all its aspects, the creation of the `subject' and `object' and the underlying self, how thought gives rise to the structure of society and its problems, where is thought appropriate, these and many other questions are studied with no final answers allowing a deeper search to be performed by the reader. A book desperately needed to brush away the cobwebs of terminology, systems, fantasies and other claptrap so prevalent in our society.

When I first read this book I didn't exactly know what it meant. After I finished I did. It is really sad that kids my age or older or younger have to do more work than I could do in two years. It's not fair that they are being denied a childhood. They never will have the chance to fall out of a tree, or get grass stains on the new pair of jeans that they will never have. If you don't find this sad you need to find a heart, picutre yourself doing all the work. I don't think we could do it.

It was a stuinning book that truly opened my eyes

I saw a story about the man who wrote and photographed this book on 60 Minutes. It was so intersting, I bought the book. The book opens your eyes to child slave labor in third world countries. It's heart breaking to see these children being abused in this manner. The photos are a reality check, and the text will make you weep.

NOT just another unicorn story, this fine first novel casts a rich golden glow that lingers with the reader. As much Americana as fantasy novel, "Unicorn Highway" makes such phrases as "heartwarming" and "uplifting" seem fresh and new again. Fans of both "Field of Dreams" and Ray Bradbury"s "Dandelion Wine" will find much to love and savor here - but this tribute to the power of the imagination is in no way derivative of those works, weaving its own down-to-earth magic in deceptively simple prose as clean and beautiful as Shaker furniture. What a wonderful movie it would make! I hope we won't have to wait long for more from this promising author.

This book is one of my favorites.When I read it I'm lost in another world full of adventure and fantasy. I would love to see this book turned into a movie! It has a little bit of everything for anyone who still has the sprit of a child in them. This book was not written for children or adults but for all of us who believe.

This is one of my absolute favorite books. It takes a while to get started, but once it gets going, it's amazing! My copy is falling apart because seven different people have read it. It's one of those books that is so realistic it's difficult to return to reality after reading a few chapters. I read it when I was a child, but didn't understand it until later. My best friend and I created a make-believe world based on Unicorn Highway. We were so positive that one day Infinity would come gallopping through the woods in her back yard and take us both for the ride of a lifetime. There was a shack near my house that to us, looked exactly like Mr. Tucker's house in the book, and we felt like part of our childhood was taken away when the city demolished that shack last winter. Unicorn Highway is a remarkable book! Get your hands on a copy as soon as possible! You don't know what you're missing if you haven't read it!