This book was great! It was so heartfelt and such an easy read. I just couldn't put it down, I had to find out what happened in the end. This book was awsome and I would recomend this book to any who can read!!!!

This book has it all! It has sadness, hope, love and suspense. It shows courage from every single character in the book, and you just can't put it down- You are drawn to find out what happens in the end. It tells us what each person is thinking, how they accomplish difficult obstacles, and forget their failures. I abslutely loved this book, and would highly recommend it to anyone with a heart!

A surperb intorduction to the stock market, mutual funds & bonds including a very concise history of the U.S. Stock markets. Geared to the totally new investor, it even covers some advanced subjects like options and money management in very understandable ways. My favorite book to recommend when someone asks "how do I get started?"

I HAVEN'T READ MANY BOOKS IN THE RECENT PAST,BUT THIS BOOK GRABBED MY ATTENTION! I AM A POOL PLAYER WHO GREW UP IN A POOL ROOM, THIS BOOK WAS RIGHT ON. IT HAD A GREAT STORY LINE WITH A GREAT CAST OF CHARACTERS.THIS STORY KEPT ME INTERESTED FROM START TO FINISH.IT BROUGHT ME BACK IN TIME AND MADE ME FEEL GOOD. I HIGHLY RECCOMEND IT.

I used this book for a paper on cognitive differences between men and women. It is a very interesting topic and the book's easy-going, compelling style drew me in and made me want to read more. It gave me a new perspective on gender differences.

this book has been one of my all time favorites. it is an excellent story and mystery. i recommend this book; you will really enjoy it

This book is amazing it includes the greatest essays i have ever read. I am studying in college and this book is requiered. For people who like to analize and enjoy reading short essays this is great; the different type of topics is very wide and the opinions from one writer to the other have a huge gap, which offers a variety of points of view.

I've read a number of books regarding the mental side of playing pool. Dr. Bob seems to break it down to the nitty gritty and manages to keep it interesting. If you've ever played pool and need work on your mental game, this book could quite possibly help you out. It helped me. Try it and see....it's defintely worth a read if you're serious about playing a better mental game than you are now.

If you're a serious player, this may be the most important purchase you'll ever make to improve your pool game. Once you are proficient at pocketing balls, getting shape, breaking, safety play and kicking, it's your mental game that determines if your skills will "come out to play today" or not. If you usually play much better in practice or when nothing is on the line than when in serious competition, this book is for you. Dr. Fancher teaches you how to use competitive pressures to your benefit. Believe it or not, you actually have the capacity to play better in competition than in practice by using the methods contained in this wonderful book. It's worked wonders for my game. I've surprised myself many times over the past year with sterling play during pressure packed matches. If I could rate this book higher than 5 stars, I would without hesitation.

I have read numerous billiards books while learning to play, but this is definitely one of the best. While reading, I found myself saying "I do that all the time...". I never realized until after I finished the book the reasons why I miss some of the easiest shots. He not only give examples of mental hangups in pool, but solutions on how to help you overcome them. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve their game!

I believe that third and fourth graders would really enjoy this text about this Mexican American youngster. Children would also enjoy the occasional Spanish included in the text. The only problem: Soto does not include a glossary this time. Oh well, Soto does a great job of portraying a family that understands what it means to really work for a living and teaches kids not to take everything for granted. Soto stays away from the sterotypical "lazy mexican".

The Pool Party by Gary Soto is a great story of a little hispanic boy named Rudy that gets invited to a pool party of a wealthy friend. Rudy's family is concerned that Rudy will not fit in and proceed to give him advice on what way he should act at the party. In the mean time Rudy decided that he is going to take an inner tube to the party against the wishes of his sister who told him that in a pool party, people don't actually go into the water and just chat by the side of the pool. Rudy listens to everyones advice, but at the end he does what he thinks is right and goes to the party and just does what is right for himself. The inner tube that he takes to the party is well received by everyone and he has a good time. This book is great for children in the fifth grade and on to read because it teaches them that being yourself is the right thing to do.

Gary Soto expresses the issue of fitting in and family life while using Rudy to guide us in a humorous way. This book is a great choice for young readers because they are able to relate with Rudy's dilema of fitting in and being liked by a new group of friends. One major concern was when Rudy finally goes to the pool party with his inner tube. One can't help but think of poor Rudy returning home early from the party crying and feeling dreadfull. The family unity is prevelant through out this book and it is expressed with how everyone is trying to give Rudy advice on how to act, talk and greet people while he's at the party. Over all this book is a great book that I had the pleasure of reading. I would recommend it to any student regardless of their ethnic background.

There's no doubt in my mind that Richard Russo is the best author I've read this year. In the last three months, I've read everything he's published: laughed my you-know-what off at Straight Man, read Empire Falls through tears, enjoyed Nobody's Fool and scratched my head through The Whore's Child. That's the context for me saying this about Russo: Risk Pool is not his best.

It's still worthwhile reading. Set in Mohawk Falls, Risk Pool is the story of a boy growing up into a man and trying to shake off the charismatic shadow of his shady father. More of a novel of ill manners than a novel of manners, Risk Pool is still reminiscent of those long English novels of the 18th and 19th centuries. It's funny, and the characters of this town are real and memorable.

What bothered me about Risk Pool is that it seemed like two separate books. The first two thirds of the book is about Ned Hall's growing up years, and the last third is what happens after he leaves college to come back and witness his father's decline. I really enjoyed the first part of the book, which really captured the universal experience of being a powerless child buffeted about by events created by not-too-healthy adults. The last third, when Ned is a not-too-healthy adult himself, was more of a reading chore. I finished the book because I loved the child Ned had been, but the last third of the book could really have been written about another person altogether. If Russo was going to take us from the moment-to-moment attention he gave to Ned's childhood to this slapdash adulthood, I would have liked to read more about Ned's college years and what was formative there.

Sam Hall's kid is having to grow up on his own. His mother is a victim of a serious mental illness that renders her totally insubstantial as a parent and/or gaurdian--when she's not in the hospital. Sam Hall is the town vagabond--the kind of guy who lives on the edge, is constantly on the move, so immeresed in his own schemes and shennanigans he's hardly got time for his kid. As a result Sam's boy essentially raises himself and spends his time wondering how his parents ever got this way, while flip flopping form the "care" of one parent to the other.

What makes this book work is that, flawed as the characters are, Russo nevertheless infuses them with the souls of real people. We can bemoan the fact that Sam's a lousy dad, and not that great a person overall, but it's hard to get too worked up about it as the fact is you kind of like the guy. In fact, this novel abounds in characters who are unsavory yet so brilliantly drawn and presented, we feel we know them well, warts and all.

Additionally, Russo is a master at rendering the landscape of the small town, painting a picture that isn't all that attractive yet abounds in appealing context and situations--that is, he makes Mowhawk feel like home feels, regardless of where you grew up.

In the end, what one is left with is a story--a rarity thses days. The novel is funny, sad, insiprational, gross and absorbing--in short, it's a lot like real life. What makes it an extraordinary story is that Russo pulls from it the extrordinary revelations about life, love, loyalty, stupidity, passion and loss that we ought to get out of our own lives but somehow don't.

A truly remarkable book.

Mohawk, New York could be any small town in the United States. People out of jobs, bar dwellers, heart attacks...every town has them and no one likes to talk about them.

This is, perhaps, one of the best novels I have read. Russo combines wit and dimension to his characters...so much that they become real.

Ned Hall has the dull life of a boy living with his mother when his father interrupts everything. Told from Ned's point of view, he walks us through the simplicity of his father's drunken stupor to the complexity of his teenage feelings...and everywhere inbetween.

The writing isn't filled with thesaurus words, rather words common people identify with everyday.

All in all, this book shows the reader a life in the life of a young boy. Parents estranged and town falling apart. And it holds you in for the whole ride.