Standard GED preparation materials are aften not enough to prepare a student to both pass a state GED examination and score well on college placements tests. Too frequently, the GED completing student scores in a range that places him in a series of remedial English and math courses for which he has to pay, but for which he will receive no course credit. Cliff's Clast Preparation Guide is a solution to this problem, markedly observed in populations targeted by welfare reform in the U.S. The text of Clast goes beyond the GED books to cement 9th-12th grade learning and build upon it step-by-step, with clear prose, problems, examples and graphics. All this challenges students and engages them in more consistent long-term study. The language arts and math skill building, along with problem-solving and critical thinking components give students what they need to succeed - the ability to figure things out rather than a dependency upon memorization. I recommend that all GED and H.S. educators pick up a copy of this Guide to help build a bridge for your students to cross to college. Don't let them fall in the river and drown.

Of the four Richards' novels I've read, this probably has the most emotional depth and most overtly political background. The protagonists of his books always seem to be essentially nice people working toward some kind of justice (council housing officer Jamie from Throwing the House Out of the Window or trade unionist Mel from A Sweetheart Deal), and here it's Nick, an investigative journalist for a TV program on wrongly incarcerated people. Richards also tends to throw in some kind of South American connection, which is much more prominent here, in the person of Uruguayan refugee Orlando and his computer nerd son.

Comfortably ensconced in his semi-socially progressive job, with a beautiful social worker girlfriend/partner, Nick seems to be floating through a series of shallow media parties and friendships. One day, a childhood friend asks him to look into the case of a friend who's currently in jail for murder. This favor leads Nick into a darker, more dangerous world, where he is forced to confront his class, the strength of his convictions, and the depth of his relationships. Meanwhile, Orlando, who is cleans Nick's office, tells of his past involvement with the Tupamaro movement, of exile in Chile and Argentina where he falls in love with another revolutionary, and his escape to the West with his family. He finds himself often wondering what it was all for and about, and why he bothered. Each man's story is compelling, as each has made mistakes and is struggling to grasp the meaning of his life. Their paths dovetail in a startling moment, and a shimmer of hope ends the story.

This is a fantastic and superb account of Joe DiMaggio's baseball career and a sad account of his life after baseball. DiMaggio the player was without parallel. DiMaggio the man apparently fell way short of the mark.and is very sad to realize what a sad, lonely man he really was.Cramer has written a masterful biography of a very complex and complicated man.

The Hero's Life is one of the better baseball biographies I've ever read. When I finished the book I had a much greater appreciation for Joe DiMaggio the baseball player and was not at all impressed with Joe D the man. But the book works best at explaining the myth of the Yankee Clipper, one that could not have surrounded the same player in a different city or era.
Like most athletes there's nothing special about the person off the ball field. Indeed there's plenty not to like. The Joe D that the public came to see was a one dimensional character. Congratulations to Cramer for fleshing him out.
DiMaggio was a fiercly loyal friend, unless, like Toots Shor, you one day said the wrong thing. He totally and completely loved two women. One gave birth to his only child and the other was Marylin Monroe. Yeah he loved Monore, he also beat her.
DiMaggio the ball player was one of the greatest of all time and Cramer provides a convincing argument, simply by letting the facts speak for themselves, through stories of his remarkable exploits including his unparalled flair for the dramatic.
Dimaggio the person was moody, tempermental and most of all, uninteresting, except from the distance of biography. And a top notch biography this is, detailing the subject's life from childhood, through his playing days, his much much celebrated romance with Monroe, and the cold business dealings of his latter years.
This baseball bio ranks only behind Creamer's on Ruth, Stump's on Cobb and Alexander's on McGraw. It would have been better served had Cramer not tipped his hand in the foreward in revealing his contmept for Joe D.

Richard Ben Cramer's biography of Jo DiMaggio is an indictment of our culture of hero worship. That an individual so thoroughly despicable could be so idolized and worshiped says a lot about what's wrong with where America puts its values. No doubt, DiMaggio was one of the greatest atheletes of the 20th century. He was also a legendary womanizer who cavorted with mobsters and took mob money on the side. He broke off all relations with his son (who died a victim of his father's fame shortly after he did) and had little to do with his own siblings, two of whom were also major leaguers. He was a man capable of cutting off frendships that had lasted decades over the tiniest perceived slight. The only touching aspect of his life was his genuine love affair with Marilyn Monroe, a woman whose life he tried to save even as he physically abused her.

Cramer is a first rate journalist and his lively prose makes "Joltin' Joe" come to life for the reader, warts and all. Cramer manages to get inside the head of the man behind the myth despite the fact that he received no cooperation from his subject. Cramer has the proper respect for DiMaggio's on field accomplishments and the proper amount of dismay at the bitter, stingy, thoroughly dislikable old man DiMaggio became. The closing of the book shows DiMaggio as a greedy huckster so willing to cash in on his own name that he was still attempting to autograph baseballs for cash on his deathbed.

This is one of the absolute best recent sports biographies. And if it should happen to cause some people to re-examine their passion for sports memorabilia, so much the better.

This is a very good book and an excellent resource for anyone looking for in insight into minority life in England. The story of an harassed Pakistani family is an especially poignant one when told through the experiences of their sweetly naive housing officer, Jamie.

This look into the negative state of race relations on council housing estates in London and its' environs at the end of the last century is told from the perspective of an inneffectual housing officer called Jamie who is the quintessence of someone on the outside looking in. Jamie tries, over the course of the novel, to relocate a Pakistani family who have been receiving racist threats while he also tries to cope with a recent breakup with a long term partner and a new-found fascination with a Chilean political refugee he meets through his Spanish instructor. Overall, this book is a vivid portrayal of the hardships suffered by working class minority families throughout Great Britain, and it offers amazing insight into the elasticity of personal race relations, as brilliantly illustrated by Jamie's fears that he cannot help a Pakistani family he cannot understand while being drawn ever closer to his Spanish tutor's "stepdaughter," for the very same reasons.

Fans of Nick Hornby and James Hawes will find a familiar hero in Jamie, a early-30s Londoner, dumped in the first chapter by a long time girlfriend. The book covers his attempts to pick up the pieces of his life, try new partners, and deal with a nasty situation at work He is a housing officer for a council housing estate, and he's the one who has to to resolve the threats to and harassment of a Pakistani family by local thugish youngsters. Plenty of snappy dialogue, and the threat of violence keeps the pages turning, as do interesting characters like Jamie's Scottish best friend and the intriguing Chilean visitor Ana Maria. If you like High Fidelity, About A Boy, or A White Merc With Fins, you'll like this.

This collection is a travesty indeed. Great poems no doubt, but abysmally read. Furthermore they should have put all the introductions together separate and apart from the poems. It's nice to hear intros the first time around. But who wants to hear the intros everytime you listen to the poems? Sometimes I want to hear just a stream of poetry without any interuptions and this format makes that impossible. It's incredible that such a great concept could be so terribly executed.

I could not get this back to the store for a refund quickly enough. While the poem selection is great and the poem introductions are narrated well, the choice to use "modern poets" as the readers made this compilation utterly unlistenable. The only one that I found acceptable was Anthony Hect--the others were notably bad. In particular, I found Jorie Graham's "readings" to be abysmal. She reads each poem as if it were simply a string of unconnected words, giving equal stress to each, with halting pauses between them, never breaking out of a drowsy monotone. Other readers were not much better.

There are three major flaws in the readings:

1) The readers are no better than the average untrained person, and often much worse. (You've just got to hear them for yourself to appreciate how bad they are.)

2) Successive poems by the same poet are read by different "readers." It's jarring to hear 3 or 4 poems from Poet X, each in a wildly different voice.

3) No regard is given to matching the sex of the poet and reader. In general, it is really annoying to hear your favorite poet read by the wrong sex. In particular, making this mistake on "gender specific" poems (like having a woman read Poe's "Annabel Lee") is unforgivable.

Why is this all so upsetting? Because it is practically impossible to find poetry collections on CD, making this a serious waste of limited resources. If you are looking for a good collection on CD, buy "81 Famous Poems CD" by Audio Partners (ISBN 0-945353-82-0). It's a good collection on two CDs and is read by professionals: Alexander Scourby, Bramwell Fletcher, and Nancy Wickwire. In the meantime, we can only hope that the producers of this collection will eventually come to their senses and re-record the poems with the services of trained professionals.

If you are prepping for the GRE in literature or are trying to gain a basic understanding of literary periods and poets, this audio-collection is a must. It features a brief introduction about each poet's life. It also includes a brief introduction about the theme of each poem. The fact that you have to listen to these introductions before listening to the poem inculcate the poem and aids retention. If literature has turned into a cumbersome and overwhelming task, this collection will not only provide you with a sense of direction but will also make literature far more pleasurable.

Book received had text in Spanish. I do not read
Spanish. I would like to buy the book with text
in English. Please advise procedure to follow.