After recently watching the much hyped movie Pearl Harbor, I realize my knowledge of the history of Pearl Harbor was woefully lacking. My search for information led me to this wondeful book by Walter Lord. Rather than a historical narrative of dry facts, it is a collection of individual stories, relating the experiences of the common ordinary soldier, sailor, marine, or civilian in the hours before the attack through the end of the day on 12/7/41.

Some of the tales are heroic, some comical, and many tragic, but they are all fascinating. One of the things that struck me was number of people who couldn't comprehend the fact they were under attack by an enemy force, even as bombs and bullets rained down on them. And the wild tales and rumors that spread throughout Hawaii in the aftermath of the attack are just incredible and laughable looking back on it now.

For those wanting more of a general overview of the battle, and a listing of historical facts, they may be disappointed by this book. But I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn more about the people involved on that fateful day.

This was the first non-kids book I ever read. That was back in the 3rd Grade. And years later I still look at this book as one of my favorites.

Walter Lord does not break any new ground in this classic but older story of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But what he does do is give you a perfect description of what happened and how it happened.

Walter Lord is one of those historians that puts you there. And thats what he does in this book. You are there as the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

I highly recommend this book.

After reading a library-full of books seeking to place blame, as history and polemic, Walter Lord's account of Dec. 7, 1941 is a compelling narrative of the emotional gamut from innocence to bitter tragedy of that pivotal day in American history. As a trained historian and reader of many of Lord's other books, I was surprised somewhat at the story-telling modus. Those who have enjoyed the methods of Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day and Stephen Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers will find themselves amidst the unpeeling of emotional numbness that years of Depression and isolationism had left on the psyches of those whose stories unfold in Lord's able prosaic style.

His ability to bring excitement and vivid characterization to history, without losing his factual focus, has long been evident in Incredible Victory, his artistic telling of the unlikely American smashing of the Japanese fleet at Midway, and his other books. It is his choice, not his inability to make conclusions, which gives the book its human punch.

Lord chooses to relate the impact of the startling events of that day on the high of rank and the swab, using personal primary sources to supplant official chronologies. He draws his readers into the chaos and heroism and tragedy, letting us react and come to conclusions, as the accumulation of individual experiences allows us.

Those looking for fodder with which to exonerate or indict from prior opinion will probably not find the key to their cases in this book. Those wanting a heart-stopping chapter of the human experience, at its most uncommon best and worst, are in for a great read. It is a very appropriate view of historic events for our time, when we have become accustomed to learning the backgrounds and reactions of our fellows involved in national tragedy, in which we share vicariously and emotionally, but look to find a more concrete point of common reference.

Darryl Brock's "Havana Heat" is a fine novel about many things. On one level, it is a book about communication -- in this case communication between a deaf baseball player (the real-life Luther Taylor) and the world around him: his wife, the folks who live in his town, and his teammates on the New York Giants. The real Taylor was a superb, but now unknown, pitcher for those Giants, and Brock brings to life his career, his robust life, and his relationships to other players. However, the book is more than that as well. Brock's acute attention to detail gives us a sense of what baseball and baseball players were like in 1911. Those were the colorful Giants of Christy Mathewson and the pugnacious John McGraw -- each worthy of his own book. A third element of the book is the trip the Giants take to Havana for a series of exhibition games against the excellent Cuban ballplayers, players who love the game as much as Americans. Particularly vivid is Brock's depiction not only of those games, but also of life in Cuba -- all the more relevant with Cuba's role in today's news. Finally, one of the book's most elegant subplots shows us how Taylor takes under his wide wing a local boy, with a magnificent arm, but who is also deaf. Brock has brought to life both characters, stories, and history not well-known to most readers. You won't forget any of it. Very highly recommended not just to baseball readers, but to anyone who loves well-crafted, well-researched, and deeply satisfying fiction.

As with his first novel, "If I Never Get Back", Darryl Brock again takes us into baseball's historical past. This time it is back to 1911, where we meet deaf pitcher Luther 'Dummy' Taylor. Taylor was a real-life pitcher who played for John McGraw's Giants. The story introduces us to Taylor at age 36, having been forced to the bush leagues due to an arm injury. Claiming his arm now healed, he convinces McGraw to include him on a team headed down to Cuba to play local teams. Brock has done a fantastic job of researching major league baseball in the early 1900's. Fans of today who look back fondly at baseball's 'Golden Age' should read this book. They will find that todays players are surprisingly more loyal and stable characters compared to their counterparts of yesteryear. Brock also gives us a glimpse of what life for a deaf man was like in those days. Due to birth defects and prenatal illness, deaf people were much more common than they are today, and were treated better than we of today might think. We also get to see what life in Cuba was like. We find that governments and the political climates may have changed, but life for the people has stayed much as it was then. Those who read "If I Never Get Back" will also be pleased to know that a brief reference is made to two characters from that story. Overall, I found "Havana Heat" to be a thoughouly entertaining book. Fans of character study will enjoy it as much as history and baseball buffs.

My only complaint about Darryl Brock is that he doesn't write enough! What a great book! I loved If I Never Get Back and I loved Havana Heat. What a wonderful story about baseball, Cuba, and Luther Taylor. C

Ever try to look up a word in a 600 page dictionary that isn't in any order known to you? Unless you know this book's secret you'll have to look through the entire book to find your weed, if it's in the book at all. There is a key on page 603 but no instructions on how to use it and the author apparently doesn't return email inquiries. This book is full of great pictures but if you want a book to help you identify a weed in your garden look somewhere else.

A must-have book for gardeners, hikers, rural residences. 100% color photos make it great to ID weeds about the house. Categorized by family so pretty easy to find. Books that have art renderings of plants just don't ID a plant for me, and I'm an artist!
Any negative about the book would be that it could use more descriptive type about the plant.

This book isn't for everyone, but it really fills a gaping hole in the reference library of any gardener interested in the use of native plants, xeriscape gardening, wildflower cultivation, etc. For anyone who has ever let a yard go to seed "just to see what happens" (or dreamed of doing so) this book helps you determine what weeds are really weeds and what weeds are hidden treasures. The book is amply illustrated with photos of both mature plants and seedlings, which helps you determine what to get rid of after monsoon rains have done their part. The descriptions are clear and the index functions fine. Plus I just love the idea of having an entire book on weeds!

This novel is wonderfully written. Walker Percy has quite a unique way of expressing thought in the English language. Unfortunately, unique does not always mean well done. In the case of Walker Percy, however, this novel is a masterpiece of prose.

The first couple of pages take the reader into the mind of a man (Lancelot) at an insane asylum who is recollecting his crimes against his now dead wife. Percy uses Lancelot as a foil to pose many questions regarding our humanity and morality.

For example, what is the sexual act? Why should it mean anything other than a biological act between two humans? What is it that causes man to be so grievously injured by adultery if the act is nothing but biology? Lancelot ponders these questions throughout the novel as he talks to his childhood friend who has become a priest. Percy gives no answers except to demonstrate through Lancelot that Lancelot's answers are lacking. Lancelot's answers form no moral basis.

The story moves quickly as Lancelot recalls the events leading up to his crime. To that end, the clipped pace of the narrative suits the urgency of the action.

The reader will understand just what he/she is getting in this novel within the first 20 pages. I recommend it highly, but do issue a caution that there is some quite honest dialogue in the novel that includes a fair amount of profanity. Though probably necessary to develope the character, some may be offended.

Purchase the book and enjoy modern literature at its best.

I can overlook that Percy basically stole Machado De Assis' "Don Casmurro," but only because the latter tackles such difficult issues, and is a VERY difficult read. And yet, Percy pulls it off. Just as we begin sympathizing with Lancelot, we're sprung forward again from our LAZ-E-BOY recliners and are reminded of the reality of his actions. I kinda wish Percy hadn't written the book in Second Person, as if WE were the therapist or something, but if THAT'S what it takes to reassure us that WE'RE not mad, so be it. A very uncomfortable, un-pretty, DISTURBING read -- worth the effort, but hard to recommend to anyone else.

After I read this book I had no choice but to immediately consume Walker Percy's novels. Reading Lancelot was like having the top of my head blown off and surviving the experience more awake and alive than ever. In an era where no one is really sure what they believe anymore, Percy sets out an interesting test. If you discovered clear evidence of evil, what would that tell you about the existence of good and maybe even God? I strongly suggest you take this journey and pay very close attention to the parallel travels of the main character's confidant, a priest-psychologist who is himself in crisis. If you do so, the ending will make the hairs stand up on the back on your neck.

Kinsella has a quality that is hard to describe, but can best be understood by reading his literature. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy is quite a remarkable book. It wraps you up in the magic of the game, and the mystical quality that Kinsella dusts every corner of the story with including the unusual religious characters, historical figures and humorous twists and turns. I truly enjoyed this book. I found it an easy and enjoyable read, and the plot interesting enough to capture my heart and inspire me as a reader.

I first picked this up off the bookstore shelf because of that Kevin Costner movie that came out in 1989, but I knew Kinsella for his writing ability before that. What made me buy the book was the back cover's description of a baseball game that lasts over 2,000 innings and the protagonist's insistence that it really did happen.

I wasn't disappointed, although I have to say that this novel doesn't offer the simple wish fulfillment of Shoeless Joe or the movie based on that novel. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy spends the first hundred or so pages describing how Gideon Clarke's father wrote a Master's thesis in History about a baseball league that noone else remembers, how the thesis was rejected and ruined his father's life, and how he (Gideon) inherited this "knowledge" of a non-existent league and this obsession upon his father's death.

Gideon seems to be following the same fruitless path of trying to prove the existence of the mythical Iowa Baseball Confederacy, when the (un)expected happens: he's taken back to 1908 to see the events occur that have so far only existed in his and his father's memory.

And then things get strange, in a bizarre and wonderful way: As the game stretches on, the flood waters rise higher, statues become animated, all manner of nature comes to life, love blooms, and the ballpark is repeatedly visited by Drifting Away, the Native American whose destiny is tied up with this small town in Iowa.

While the plot of the novel resembled Darryl Brock's If I Never Get Back, or T. Coraghessan Boyle's short story, "The Hector Quesadilla Story," The Iowa Baseball Confederacy reminded me of nothing so much as the Magic Realism fiction by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges. Indeed, at times, I felt like was reading a shorter version of Marquez' A Hundred Years of Solitude, only this time placed in the turn of the century American Midwest.

I did say that this book is not about wish fulfillment like Kinsella's more famous Shoeless Joe, but I didn't consider this a weakness. The fantastic does occur in The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, but only with the caveat that fantasy doesn't always help one's reality. Kinsella does entertain the reader with all kinds of strange imaginings, but Gideon is still searching for fulfillment in the same ways that the rest of us do. Some may be disappointed with bittersweet quality of this book, but that same quality only makes the novel true to life. In spite of all the bizarre twists and turns of plot.

And by the way, the game descriptions are wonderful reminders that baseball truly hasn't changed that much over the years.

After reading "Shoeless Joe" my craving for W.P. Kinsella needed to be taken care of. When I picked up "The Iowa Baseball Confederacies" I did not expect to read it entirely in one day. But Kinsella has that kind of effect on a reader. He intertwines fiction with fact, reality with fantasy. He develops characters so well that you feel their pain when things don't go their way, and you share in their joy when things do. The story of Gideon Clarke and his obsession is a page turner for anyone who enjoys fantasy novels, and a healthy knowledge of baseball wouldn't hurt early. His use of the greatest double play tandem in baseball history, Tinkers-Evers-Chance, lets the reader associate reality with Kinsella's fantasy world. The story of the Iowa Baseball Confederacy and their 40 day baseball game versus the eventual World Champion Cubs of 1908 is a book I strongly reccommend

Rex Stout is clearly the best writer in this genre. He manages to combine exciting and original plots with a light, entertaining and witty style of writing. How can someone not laugh about the acid sarcasm that runs between Archie and Nero? How can someone not be amused by the Wolfe's small idiosyncrasies? In The Doorbell Rang Stout is once again at his best. This time Wolfe lured by an incredibly wealthy client takes on Hoover and the FBI. This adds some not very realistic element to the story and that is why I gave this book only four stars. Besides from that excellent read, very enjoyable. Gotta love Stout!

This may not be the best Wolfe story to start with, because it is one of the later and greater of Stout's novels. However, if you do read this and like it, you won't be disappointed with any others in the series.

Interestingly, Stout was 48 when his first Wolfe novel was published and he continued writing them until he was almost 90.

This book has it all, from the usual cast of characters, Wolfe and Archie in the old brownstone, Saul, Orrie, and Fred, the freelancers hired to help on the case, Inspector Cramer, and the plot features an interesting twist on Wolfe's orchid hobby...well hobby doesn't describe 10,000 orchids in his rooftop greenhouse. You know there's a lot of commerce involved in keeping that collection going, but I'd better not say anymore about that.

Wolfe is visited by a potential client with a problem that could be too hot to handle. You see, she has sent out copies of a book, "The FBI Nobody Knows" to influential people, newspaper editors, etc. Now she thinks the G-men are following her, tapping her phone and maybe worse. Most PI's wouldn't handle this case, even if the client was Cleopatra or Helen of Troy.

But, a check for $100,000 has a...powerful appeal to Wolfe(it was a lot of money in the 60's when the book was written). Has Nero Wolfe finally bitten off more than he can chew when the FBI comes calling?

Read this book. I consider it a classic, of both humor and of subtle political commentary. I give this book five of the biggest, brightest stars in the heavens.

Rex Stout has always been one of the best mystery writers. The Doorbell Rang is one of his best. It sprints along and gets you caught up in the story. Nero Wolfe takes a case to stop the FBI themselves from harrassing a rich woman. On the way, he encounters a murderer, lying women, lying men, and a pair of FBI agents who he uses in one of the most creative ways I have ever read.
What makes this book so great is that it's different from most Nero Wolfe books. In this one, the main case is not a murder. The enemy is a huge and powefrul organization. Throughout the book, special precautions are taken by Wolfe and Archie, his wisecracking assistant, because they both know that the FBI isn't above bugging. The way they fulfill their clients wishes is wonderful, but of course I won't tell you how they do it. And the very end made me laugh out loud in the middle of a crowded bus. Just wait for it and you'll see what I mean. Stout is also a great writer and the Doorbell Rang is full of snappy writing and Wolfe in all his eloquence. It is a great book and it is really fun to read.

Though I've seen quite a few of Cary Grant's movies, this is the first biography on him that I've read. I was quite impressed with the book. Since I had seen tv documentaries and read a little about Cary on the internet, I was familiar with his life but this helped flesh out the details. Cary Grant's rise to stardom is probably one of the most unlikely and fascinating stories of Hollywood. As a young boy (age 9) his mother was suddenly taken from him and Cary was left to assume that she'd died or abandoned him. As any psychologist can tell you, this would be a huge impact on anybody's life. The rest of the story, Archie Leach (CG's real name) turning into Cary Grant is interesting and the anecdotes related throughout the book give a good sense of Cary's character. He is shown to be a caring, private, and humorous man in real life as he was on the screen. He had his troubles as well and this book deals with those excellently. It doesn't gloss over bad parts in Grant's life. I would have appreciated more stories illustrating Grant's character and more background on his marriages (the author states the facts about how he met his wives, when they were married, and when they were divorced, but not much more). All in all, it is an excellent biography, not the sleazy type at all, and a fitting tribute to one of the greatest actor's the world has known. I plan on reading more about the fascinating life of Cary Grant.

This is a book that is just like its subject:intelligent,elegant,entertaining,stylish and charming.Read it,display it and treasure it!

This is an exemplary biography by any standards.It is incredibly thorough,insightful and engaging,and the author writes with the same kind of grace,wit and elegance as his subject.This is a beautiful,stylish,special book that you will want to read,re-read,consult,study,discuss,display and cherish.

This book describes the survival of three Sailors whose plane was lost at sea during World War II. Upon plunging into the water, it details the events that brought out the most basic human elements of survival and how they each conquered their individual fears. If you're looking for something to read in a short period of time but want a story with substance, this is the book!

I'm a freshman at Wayzata High, and a student of that teacher who posted his review in May 19, 1999. He's a crazy one, he is. But to the book, I thought it was a good read. Though I was forced to do a study guide for it...bah... But that wasn't enough to sour my taste of the book. I enjoyed it very much so. That ca-razy grey albatross had me wondering if he really was the essance of all evil. And it was quite a tale, too. To think that it was all true, and was told by some guy who interviewed Dixon. It was so well written in 1st person, I would have thought it was written by the man himself. Definately a good read for those who like a good story. BUY NOW! I COMMAND YOU! OooooOOOooo!

I am a high school English teacher and have used this book in my classes for over twenty years. This is a story that will capture the most reluctant readers and transport them to the South Pacific of 1942 where, along with Harold Dixon, Gene Alrich, and Tony Pastula, they will fight for their lives in a seemingly hopeless situation: adrift at sea in a four by eight foot rubber life raft for thirty-four days and nights -- an inspiring and memorable read!

Walker Percy is a great writer and thinker (ie., Thanatos Syndrome & Lost In The Cosmos) but I must say I just couldn't relate to this particular peculiar book. Honestly, I read it all, and kept waiting, waiting for something... at the end I was disappointed. I could not get into the armageddonish or rather apocalyptic mode of this book... it takes place in the future which is actually the past though? Help me, please. I honestly kept thinking that one has to be from the deep south (of the U.S.A.) to fully appreciate the racial things that are going on in the book... and since I'm not, I want to be fair and say the book is O.K. Percy rocks, but in this particular case, he did not rock MY world? Maybe I need a Lapsometer treatment?

Walker Percy died over a decade ago, leaving a small but dedicated readership. A dilettante whose interests ran from medicine and psychiatry (Percy was an M. D.) to semiotics, philosophy, and religion, we remember Percy for his slightly cantankerous (but never malicious) outlook on modernity and the human condition.

"Love in the Ruins," written in '71, imagines a U.S.A. in which prevalent (and sometimes contradictory) trends run to their illogical extremes -- political association becomes fragmented to the point of neo-tribalism, mainline churches become secularized to the point of banality or fixated to the point of intolerance, and psychological treatment grows increasing manipulative. Into this world he drops Dr. Tom More, "bad Catholic" and the inventor of the Ontological Lapsometer. The Lapsometer measures the degree to which a soul has fallen, the degree of estrangement and alienation it has attained. One particular sickness it detects is angelism/bestialism -- the tendency to go from spirit-like abstraction to animal appetite with little moderation. Like all technologies, the Lapsometer becomes a means of social and spiritual manipulation, and Dr. More and his device set in play a story that leads the world to the brink of apocalypse.

By turns desperate and hilarious, this readable novel holds up well today. I also recommend "Lost in the Cosmos," which contains many of the same ideas, but in more of a tragi-comic essay form.

I always considered Walker Percy our greatest living writer until his death in 1990, and now there is that rather messy problem of figuring where he fits in the cosmic scheme of things. That problem would make him smile no doubt. Philosopher, physician, scientist, and moralist, he brings remarkable depth to this parable of clinical depression set in a time when America has lost its greatness, perhaps from internal decay or perhaps external attack. There are passages here that strike home with too much realism since the horrors of September 11.

The protagonist, Dr. Tom More, sets out to restore balance to the human soul through his remarkable invention, the Ontological Lapsometer. But is this the quest of a madman or a savior?

There is an altogether too eerie prescience in the opening pages, and while one should not expect Nostradamus, consider these lines:

"These are bad times.

"Principalities and powers are everywhere victorious. Wickedness flourishes in high places.

"There is a clearer and more present danger, however. for I have reason to believe that within the next two hours an unprecedented fallout of noxious particles will settle hereabouts and perhaps in other places as well."

Grab this book and fill your glass to the brim with crushed ice and whatever distilled spirit you favor. But if you notice the vines growing across your windows, you might want to get the shears or perhaps refill your glass. Either way, you will be hooked by this book, a real treasure of American literature.

Along with Hammett, Cain and Chandler, Ross Macdonald is a pioneer of the literate mystery novel.

In "The Chill" (written in 1963), Lew Archer has a missing persons case that leads to three murders committed over a twenty year period that he must tie together.

There is plenty of action, twists, reversals and suspense throughout...adultery, cons, frame-ups, blackmail.

The plot is complicated and complex; filled with plentiful characters (many with aliases). You have to pay attention and keep score.

The ending is a major surprise.

It is easy to see why it is among the IMBA's "100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century."

Well worth a second read.

MacDonald is rightfully considered one of the three great hardboiled detective novelists (along with Hammett and Chandler). Rereading this novel confirmed what I thought the first time I read it: this is the best detective novel that I have ever read.

It is also the most appropriately titled novel that I have ever encountered. The first time I read this I was lying in the sun beside the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. When I reached the moment when the mystery was solved, a chill literally ran up my spine. One of the truly creepy moments of my life. Hyperbole rules among reviewers here, but this one would get a higher rating if I were allowed.

I have read most of MacDonald novels, despite the fact that I really don't spend much time reading mystery or detective fiction. His earliest books are good, but not great. But about four or five novels into the Lew Archer series MacDonald (in real life Professor Kenneth Millar, and husband of fellow mystery writer Margaret Millar)found his voice and his theme. In all his best books the theme is: the sins of the father shall be visited upon the second and third generations (I didn't check my OT for a more precise quotation). A typical plot from his best novels is as follows: Archer is asked to look into this or that problem (a person has disappeared, has left, is being plagued by someone, etc., etc.). Gradually upon conducting his investigation his role shifts from detective to archaeologist, until he eventually discovers the troubles that he has been asked to look into have causes reaching back ten, twenty, or even fifty years. The seed planted by an act decades earlier has sprouted in the present, destroying those who are otherwise innocent. (MacDonald always reminds me of Yeats's "Leda and the Swan," where Zeus's rape of Leda will eventually result in the birth of Helen and all the tragedy of Troy: "A shudder in the loins engenders there/The broken wall, the burning roof and tower/And Agamemnon dead.")

All of MacDonald is more than readable, but someone wanting to proceed from THE CHILL (which really is his finest work) should look at THE DROWNING POOL or THE INSTANT ENEMY.

Ross Macdonald could flat out write. His style is at times very 'Chandleresque', (he really enjoyed Chandler's books)but he brings something else to this story that even the master Raymond Chandler wouldn't have.

The word is 'dimension'. Where Chander and Hammett were known for there 'hardboiled' approach, Macdonald's Lew Archer is obviously a man of keen intelligence. He is also one cool customer, a flawed man in a flawed world.

The story concerns a murder that could be connected to

another murder that happened many years before. And, maybe another. The plot reveals itself slowly, I wasn't quite sure where it was going, but the writing is so crisp and poetic, that i just read, and let it all happen.

This is a wonderful book, written by a man who deserves all the praise in the world for bringing something else to the mystery novel.

Just read it, and enjoy.