Well written. concise short stories, hilarious situations. Easy to read aloud being written with a scottish accent.

The outstandingly inimitable Para Handy, with his crew of mischevious miscreants, Dan MacPhail, The Tar, Dougie and Sunny Jim sail from port to port on the western seaboard of Scotland in their old puffer 'The Vital Spark'. Carrying a bewildering assortment of cargos to distant outposts such as Tobermory, Port Ellen, Lochgilphead and Castlebay the crew meander peacefully at their own speed regardless of the urgency of the senders and receiptients of the cargos.

Along the way they meet various adventurers such as Hurricane Jeck and never resist the opportunity to put ashore for a relaxing pipe and dram, especially if there should be a relation or impending dance in the area. Para Handy, as the captain of the vessel waxes lyrical upon a thousand subjects from the English ('Poor sowls, I feel sorry for them')to the Highland midge and many of the stories in the collection will be in the form of a far fetched yarn from Para Handy.

An excellent collection of extremely funny and light hearted stories. This book is a must in any discerning reader's collection.

This book is stunning. It weighs in at around 9 pounds and none of the weight is wasted on essays, articles, summaries, etc. There are actually some great pieces on statistics at the beginning of the book, but the focus is on the numbers. A lot of weight is put on the Runs Created stat, so some understanding of that is helpful. The book has some very useful numbers for each player: for pitchers, the League ERA (either for the year you are looking at or over the pitcher's career; for hitters the league Runs Created per 27 outs (again by year or career); for fielders, the league Fielding Percentage (year or career). These are great comparison numbers.

This book does not replace Total Baseball (which is a must have for its great essays, leader charts, etc.) but its a must for the hard-core fan. I can't wait to see the All-Time Major League SourceBook!!!

This book takes up where Macmillan's and Total Baseball leave off statistically. For years, I looked for full fielding stats and pitcher's hitting stats and couldn't find them. The Handbook provides these in full.

The only drawback is that team and record information is not provided. But, then again, who'd be able to lift the book?

A must buy for statistics freaks!!!

If you're the type to pour over baseball statistics, for any reason, this is the best book available. I've owned every edition of Total Baseball, MacMillan's Baseball Encyclopedia, The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball, and this one. And this is the one.

Not only is every batting and pitching stat in here, but fielding is here, by position, and by year as well. Better yet, this edition estimates innings in the field, so that range factors for defensive susbstitutes are now graded properly (sadly, though, the defensive innings are not published).

This book is particularly good for those who play baseball simulations and enjoy creating their own ratings for players (charts, computer files, whatever). For roughly the cost of one Red Sox ticket, you can have this book and enjoy it for years to come (or at least until the 3rd edition is released).

The Lives of Girls and Women is written by one of the most observant writer Alice Munro. A wonderful written book about a girl's live. A book that's very hard to capture its theme. I am a student studying this book. So if you have any useful information about of the book, please mail it to me. Thanks

This book is a difficult one to contemplate.If you have any good material about this book. Please state it in your review. I am a student studying this book and would like to know more indepth information about it.

In the 1980s, the late Alex Harvey was feted as the "godfather of punk" for his attitude & stage persona, belying his glam-rock status of the '70s, a status which, in turn, belied his '60s R&B legend status, predated by his skiffle & Dixieland status... The story of Scots rocker Alex Harvey, the self-proclaimed "Last of the Teenage Idols", is a story long overdue. Munro's bio focuses remarks from Harvey's family and contemporaries alongside vintage interviews with the Faith Healer himself to paint a picture of a journeyman artist, more workingman than Rock Star.

Harvey's rise, fall, and rebirth as Sensational parallels the history of rock itself. As arguably the first Scottish artist to record a rock album (1964's "Alex Harvey & His Soul Band"), Harvey's career swung as wildly as his choice of cover tunes. After fronting the group that inspired Glasgow schoolgirl Lulu to record her first hit, "Shout", Harvey went on to focus on folk, then spent time as a cabaret singer before landing in the pit band of the London production of "Hair". After making several avant garde attempts at psychedelia (including stints with the jazz-tinged Rock Workshop and his own band, Giant Moth), Harvey found his place fronting the former prog band Tear Gas as his own Sensational Alex Harvey Band. As in his previous musical incarnations, Harvey's main strength as a performer lay in making other artists' songs undoubtedly his own, whether the Tom Jones chestbeater "Delilah", R&B stalwarts Lieber & Stoller's "Framed" or those of more obscure composers like Belgian Jaques Brel ("Next").

The main criticism I've heard about the book is that any die-hard Harvey fan will have heard all these stories before. That doesn't really detract from the value of the book -- any die-hard Harvey fan will have to have it, if only for the rare photos inside. Maybe once the paperback version is released Alex Harvey will finally, 20+ years after his untimely death, get the recognition he deserves as a world-wide Sensation.

I found parts of this book quite interesting, especially the parts taking place in Greece.

About two-thirds the way through, I suddenly found myself reading without the book making sense. I had to ask someone else who was reading the book at the same time, if she was as confused as I was. My friend explained that they had changed characters. I went back and re-read, but still found the trasition from one character's story to another very unclear. I felt annoyed and disappointed, as I had become involved in the first character's story, and I never did come to care about the second character.

Overall, this book did have some interesting passages. But I'm afraid I personally found the book far too "literary" in style, and very confusing. I am a professional person with a Master's Degree, yet this book made me feel really stupid. I felt confused and lost as to what was happening, and it was a real struggle for me to finish the book after the author switched characters.

In order to appreciate this book you have to surrender to it and let its poetry wash over you. It takes some time to build up, but if you let it, it will move you with its very unique images. The structure is rather unusual: for instance, you might be given a description of the banks of a river in Canada, strange in that artifacts of daily living such as knifes and spoons and dishes are imbedded in its banks. Only later does the reader understand the significance of this description when he or she reads about the flood that almost killed one of the main characters.

No other book that I've read provides such a sense of the dead--all those who once lived on earth and now are deep within the bogs, at the bottoms of the sea, in mass graves, in archaeological sites--to be dug up and remembered by the archaeologists who are like priests of memory. This book is really about memory and how we owe it to the dead to remember them: Jacob remembers his beloved sister Bella who died in the Holocaust; Athos remembers the dead of the excavated city Biskupin in Polland where he rescued Jacob; Jacob finishes Athos' work as a way to honor his memory and the learning he imparted; Ben remembers Jacob and his poetry and finds in his poetry and journals answers to his profoundest dilemmas.

We numb ourselves to atrocities such as the Holocaust because the horror is so great; but books like this help us remember and pay homage to those who suffered. It's a beautiful book even though the structure is flawed and the language not always perfection. Still, it's superior to 95% of what's on the market.

I agreed with all other 5 star reviews, can hardly improve on their reviews, but absolutely disagreed with "audubon" and any less than 4 stars. What answer could any therapy possibly provide to the Holocaust and all its generational victims? Haven't you ever experienced the deeply healing and redemptive power of new love? I too, underlined so much, rewrote so much in my reader's journal, and just recommended this book as my latest "bible" to my entire e-mail family during a round-robin theological/philosophical debate we are having. I stared at Ms. Michaels' picture over and over, so impressed I was that a woman so young can know so much and be so wise in such exquisitely poetic prose that I could read her over and over if stranded on Zakynthos--I haven't yet had the pleasure of visiting after my 3 weeks in Greece. I hope she writes again, and put her right up there with my last latest weeper, Louise Erdrich's, Tales of Burning Love--not just Erdrich's story, but also her writing. Now I have to get Michaels' poetry. Deserved her First Novel award for every well-crafted word and sentence. (My first on-line book review, I was so moved and motivated to read others' responses since no one in my circle has yet discovered her, and to share my delight and astonishment with other appreciators.)

You Gotta Be Kidding! They Did It Again! The National Pasttime has a long, rich tradition of extraordinary literary coverage. However, no one has quite captured the essence of the great game of baseball...until now. Meet STATS All-Time Baseball Sourcebook, close to 9 lbs of pure magic. Bill James and John Dewan must have really had an epiphany to dream up this level of detail.

If you thought the first monster, STATS All-Time Major League Handbook was good, this one really hits the target. At over 2500 pages, I doubt that you'll want to read this book in one sitting, however, I think it's a heck of an accomplishment and the guys and gals at STATS should really be proud of this one.

This isn't a bad book, unless of course, youre like me and want fielding stats for everyone, and hitting stats for pitchers. This book omits fielding stats for all but post-season. It also omits Sacriifice Hits and pitchers hitting stats. Go with the Major League Handbook if youre big into stats like I am.

Overall it got my hopes up as one of the best publications of its time, but fell short of that, way short.