The Justus Girls by Slim Lambright is an impressive debut. The story includes all the ingredients of a wonderful read: suspense, drama, memorable characters, vivid imagery, sharp and witty dialogue, and strong writing. The Justus Girls were four African American girls from blue-collar families who resided in inner city Philly during the '50s/'60s. The Girls-Peaches, Jan, Sally and Rachel/Roach later known as Rasheda-- were so close and did everything together that they decided to form a drill team during their childhood and they made a vow that they would always be their for one another. Unfortunately, as they grew up they would also drift apart. As the story opens, three decades later, the remaining friends are gathered at the funeral of Peaches who has been murdered. They're surprised at how time and distance caused them to loose contact with one another but they promise to rekindle their friendship and find out the truth about who killed Peaches. But in the process they will also rediscover each other and learn that the bond they established years ago might have been slightly cracked but it was never really broken.

The Justus Girls was a poignant and heartwarming read. I enjoyed how Lambright navigated us back into time and how we lived each girl's life via a series of flashbacks. We witnessed how their futures were shaped by alcohol, promiscuity, the husbands they choose, the dreams they pursued, and long-held secrets that each of them were afraid of being exposed. These characters truly jump off the pages and into your life. Lambright weaved a tale so revealing about friendship and supporting each other that for a moment I thought this was my life story she was talking about. The Justus Girls is probably one of the best written, best developed, best plot twists and turns storylines that I have had the pleasure to read by a new author in quite sometime. This novel just touched me on so many levels...and I liked that it wasn't overwritten. Lambright set up scenes and situations and gave you enough information to wet your taste and satisfy your need for details without going overboard. I think folks who remember growing up during the late 50s/60s will really enjoy this book cause it takes you back to when it was a different world from what you know today...when folks truly cared about one another and everyone in the community felt like your family. I look forward to more novels from this writer as this book was da bomb and off the hook good! I can't say enough good things about this book so I will just close by saying...pick up a copy today and curl up with it. I think you will enjoy the story immensely and if you like it as much as I did you will want to read it in one sitting. And Slim...I look forward to future books from you...you're an exciting and welcomed addition to the literary community. Ps...This review is not a paid endorsement...I just really enjoyed this book and wanted to let others know!

This book was a Birthday gift and what a wondeful gift it was.

"The Justus Girls" "The JG's" is what they call themselves.

When I first started reading The JG's I was in tears the first chapter tore me apart. In The JG's Slim Lambright spoke the true meaning of friendship.

The JG's was very well written. I felt like I was apart of the JG's. Once you start reading you are not going to want to put the book down. It was an excellent read all the way through. I was in touch with all the character I was feeling the love they had for one another. When I finished the book I just Knew I was a JG, I picked up the phone to call my 3 close friends and we masde a date to go out and just chill. I told all of them to go and buy this book. I really recommend this book to all especially those who have REAL CLOSE FRIENDS THAT YOU HAVE NOT BEEN IN CONTACT WITH. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.

Several friends recommended this book to me. With a lead like, Who killed Peaches, and the mention of a drill team, I didn't know quite what to expect. The Justus Girls turned out to be a tale of everlasting friendship and womanhood. But, it's not your run-of-the-mill read. There is mystery and intrigue interspersed throughout.

It starts out in the present, in West Philadelphia, with the funeral of one of the original Justus Girls, a drill team that was created in the 60's. The story is told through the lives of the three remaining friends who come together to discover the murderer of their friend. It shows us how the drill team, as well as the enduring friendships were created. It shows what each of them had to go through to make them into the women that they became. They each had their own troubles. It shows how we all need friends to lean on at those times in our lives.

Peaches' came up hard and made up for it by becoming a good-time girl/barmaid who loved to have fun. Roach is the spiritual one who turned to Islam. Mustang Sally is the not so silent type with the often biting tongue. Then there's always the one that is strong for everyone, and that one is Jan, but there is a time when that strength deserts her and her friends are there to bolster her up. I guess you'd say that it takes all kinds to make a world. In this case you couldn't be more right. There's also the old-time, one-legged pimp, Daddy-Baby, who I see as the godfather type, ghetto-style and his lady RedTop. There's Ursula, Peaches' mother and her friend Vaa, the gay savior.

Pick it up, read it and you'll be recommending it to all of your friends too. I guarantee it!

Lawler's subject is timely and could have been an important contribution to the Pope-Holocaust debate. But he blew it. His writing is offputting and inaccessible to most. He seems more interested in parading his erudition than enlightening his readers. It's a poorly organized, convoluted slog through obscure allusions and flat attempts to be clever. Even William Buckley would give up on it. I'm sure he has something worthwhile to say on a subject vital to many of us. As I might once have told my english students: Read E.B. White's "Elements of Style" and start over.

Lawler's impressive scholarly detailing guides even those unfamiliar with the theology of the papacy through a series of reviews which focus in part on the difficult period of the Holocaust. While Lawler has constructed a carefully developed argument that responds to recent popular analyses of the papacy, the greatest value of his POPES AND POLITICS rests in his propositions for reform. He provides the meditative direction for necessary change in the future by moving away from the easy, "admire nothing," fadist papal criticism of many theological commentators; and he offers paradigms which will allow the contemporary church to realize the lasting role of the papacy. With wit and comprehensive scholarship, Lawler can always be counted on to awaken and provoke thought in all but the most dead-minded readers.

Lawler has impeccable credentials as a liberal Catholic and a scholar who is concerned with the reform and renewal of the Catholic Church. In this book, he takes on fashionable writers such as Gary Wills and James Carroll for the sake of real scholarship and real reform. He shreds the pretensions to sound scholarship of these and some others popular in the press. Citing not only their mistakes as "researchers", he decries the ideology that has led to the poor history and analysis. Besides this kind of demolition, he proposes models such as Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Congar as alternatives to the media centered sound bites feeding "papaphobia". The second to last chapter on the spirituality necessary for patient and enduring reform I found especially helpful.

However pragmatic, I am ever compeled at the versitility of Justus Buchler. Being that my parents hold him in such regard, he has become my patron, and I am happy that they have since named me in his honor. His works have ever moved me, and he has convinced me to persue philosophy in college, and I always carry a book with the notes that I particularly find useful and relevant in life. His works are, and will always be prelevant in my mind.

I just saw this coffe-table book while snooping around a bookstore, and had to thumb through it: beautiful wood boats -- of course there's ChrisCraft, but many others I had never heard of.

Get this book for yourself, and/or your favorite "captain" and "crew": in my case, for my father-in-law, who owned such boats, and for my wife, who continually spins yarns about growing up with these beauties.

I thought this book was very boring and very dry. This book was chosen by my history professor for my History of American Foreign Relations class so I had no choice in reading this book. Some parts were very interesting, and it held my attention for a while, but then the authors would go back to the dry and monontonous tone that put me to sleep. If you're a history buff, you might enjoy this book. If not, I don't suggest you buying it.

Honestly, if you buy a book entitled "From Isolation to War" in the AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES, you're bound to be disappointed if you're A) Not a history buff or B) a complete idiot. Hopefully, having at least found this book listed on Amazon, you are neither. I have worked with Professor Doenecke, and used his book as a textbook in two classes. It is well-written, thoroughly-researched, dryly humorous at points, and extremely incisive. A true pleasure to read, especially if you are aware that history is a force in our lives, and will continue to be so forevermore.

I read this book because I wanted to learn the art of fine letter writing of olden times that is spoken of so often. This book does do that, in general terms. But too often the book repeats itself. Basically, letters should be written in a conversational tone (though not too conversational) that are to the point (no lengthy expositions). One annoying thing was that there were 20,000 footnotes, and so you had to keep on flipping to the back of the book rather than having the footnote at the end up the page (and usually the footnotes weren't all that important so I'd stop reading them, and then occasionally realize that I needed to read the footnote so that the sentence(s) would make sense. Also, half the book is an introduction by the translators that covers the bio of Justi Lipsii but mainly into the history of letters in the previous couple hundred years to Lipsii as well as the disagreements between the different schools of thought on letter-writing. I was appreciative of most of the intro, but the translators could have learned a lesson from Lipsii about succinctness. I only ended up reading about 80% of the 40-page intro and didn't feel as though I missed out anything.

But don't think this book is all bad. It's just footnotes and an intro that I wasn't crazy about, and those are relatively minor things.

....Called How To Get A Head In School Is the worst book I hav ever read. I can't explain how bad this book is. My counselor reccomended this book for me. I truly give this book -3 stars. Never ever,ever read this book. For your brains sake, DON'T READ THIS BOOK.