"The Best of Pif Magazine Off-Line" offers a refreshing assortment of new stories and new voices. A standout among them is Mimi Carmen's "Love Birds". Ms. Carmen's tale of an aging mother and conflicted daughter resonates with idiosyncratic vision and gritty passion. The bird imagery is breathtaking. I also very much enjoyed "23 Johnson Avenue, 1985" by Diann Blakely. If writers were race horses, and I had money, I'd bet my wad on these two.

A wonderful collection - refreshingly different, but solid. My favorite is "Love Birds" by Mimi Carmen. I'd like to read more of her work.

I am bored with many print magazines nowadays. The same things, the same things. Ho-hum. I've been following this zine for a while now, open it every month with relish. They've definitely picked a lot of their best, and Camille Renshaw's intro says a lot about WHY I don't like other magazines. Here is something worth a read, something that will make you want to get everything the magazine has put out since the beginning. There's even a rationale for professional wrestling, something that wants me to buy a tape of the event with the Undertaker/Mankind Hell in the Cell match, and I NEVER watch that stuff! You should definitely have this on your shelf--impress your friends with how in the know you are.

This is a very, very good book for children. I just startedreading it this morning (Have not yet finished.), but already it issooooo good! I love this book and think you will too!

It's summer in Oakdale and Sam, David, Joe, and of course, Wishbone are all talking about their plans for the summer. Sam's dad gets a call from his friend -Tom- at his new pizza place. It turns out that Tom just bought an old summer camp and wanted to know if Sam's dad knew anyone who could be a counselor there because he was three short. Next thing ya know Joe, David, and Sam are in the car on their way to camp Ka Nowato. They step out of the and onto what seem like the deserted grounds of Camp Ka Nowato. Around the corner a boy and a girl walk around the corner. Their names are Rebbeca and Jeremy. Soon after two blue school buses drive into the parking lot. Tom is driving one of these buses. When Wishbone is invited to stay at Camp Ka Nowato. He gladly excepts and is deemed camp guard dog. His job is not an easy one and it doesn't get any easier when some spooky things start happening at Camp Ka Nowato. Is it really the ghost of Ka Nowato, the guardian of the Chitowa sacred burial ground or is it just some pranksters? find out when you read this great, lightly spooky, quite mysterious, interestin and absorbing book.

The Ghost of Camp Ka Nowato

The story takes place in early summer, mostly at Camp Ka Nowato, in the woods near a lake. Joe, Sam and David (from the Wishbone T.V. series) are counsellors at the camp. Someone starts playing pranks and it's up to them and Wishbone, the guard dog, to find out who is playing the pranks. I enjoyed reading the book. I was curious to see what would happen next. I recommend it for kids who like to read chapter books. This Super Mystery has longer chapters than the Wishbone Mysteries Books, but it is no harder to read.

Between AP stylebook, Rooney's "Copy Editing for Professionals" and "The Editor's Toolbox," you, as a journalist, will have just about everything you need.

As a professional communicator who needs to act periodically as an editor, I believe the essentials taught by Ryan should be mandatory in any journalism class.

Ryan explains editors must know the basics of spelling, grammar, etc. But he also discusses firmly the need and process of fact checking, layout issues, map reading and plenty of other oft-ignored matters of good journalism.

Editors, future editors and jouurnalism professors need to add this tool to their collection of resource books.

I fully recommend "The Editor's Toolbox."

Anthony Trendl

Mostly a reference guide and textbook for journalists, the Editor's Toolbox has some interest for the General Reader who is curious about how his newspaper is created.
The reporting and editing processes are covered in some detail, with particular attention to language pitfalls and necessary skills. Visual journalism is well illustrated.
This is a lively and obviously highly useful work, which looks to be especially handy for the student. The General Reader might wish for more attention to have been paid to the embarrassingly obvious biases which have crept into mainstream journalism via loaded language and selective attention.
(The "Rating Stars" are a requirement. This reviewer disavows "stars".)

Is Hollywood cinema harmless entertainment or sophisticated propaganda? Is what we see up on the screen a passive reflection of our social world, or does it actively shape it? These are just some of the themes this excellent study explores. The authors suggest that the way cinema communicates meaning is not just a matter of content but of form. That the use of certain camera angles, editing techniques and narrative strategies can be read politically as well as the script these techniques articulate. They also maintain that conservative cinema is inherently metaphoric in style, presenting its historically specific worldview as a timeless domain untouched by material reality. They oppose to this a cinema that do does not attempt to transcend its material underpinnings, but instead highlights the provisional nature of our most deeply held beliefs, thus opening up the possibility of exploring new ways of seeing the world.

Perhaps Kellner and Ryans most controversial idea is that Hollywood played no small role in ideologically preparing the masses for the oncoming conservative onslaught that was Ronald Reagan. Kellner takes up this idea again in his "Media Culture" where he convincingly argues that films such as "Top Gun", "Missing in Action", and the latter Rambo movies played a significant part in engineering the subsequent pro-Gulf War hysteria.

Published in 1988 when Derrida was all the rage, Camera Politica does tends to overdo the deconstruction thing a bit, but this is a small criticism in what is a genuinely illuminating study.

This book made me glad to be a woman. In so many ways our society says women are defective. This book is a wonderful collection of essays by some of the brightest, most articulate women. It has wonderful language from so many authors affirming women and affirming how we can change the world. I particularly enjoyed Cheri Huber, Riane Eisler, Brooke Medicine Eagle, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and all the authors have something important to say. The listing of on-line resources is terrific. The book is very optimistic (and the on-line resources even more so) about the possibility of creating a good future.

My daughter LOVED this book. Sometimes I would hear her laughing from the other room as she read it. She would even bring up some of the issues she read about during dinner. She said that even though it was written by adults, it was presented in "her language" (funny, I thought she spoke English like the rest of us). She really liked the chapters by Mark Bernstein and Keith Hawkins in particular. Thanks for a great read. Go MAD is great!

If you read deeply, then you read poetry. If you read poetry, you must read "Switchblade", "Passion", "Milk the Mouse" and "The End of the World." This poet is genuine. The voices are haunting. Sometimes I hate them because they have lingered in the crevices of my mind for over ten years and refuse to vacate. Why not call them over to yours?

Kaliedoscope does the opposing viewpoints journal and essay writing approach very well. The articles are clustered into related fields with well written essays by professionals in the the mix of the issues in education and a few well known voices from the academic researchers to balance it out. The articles all kept me engaged due in part to the volitile nature of of the subjects addressed and the fact that they provoked a strong sense of either agreement of disaproval in either case. This book is a must read for new teachers that are trying to feel out the issues they will be facing in the classrooms and on their school campuses.

I've had similiar issues as Mr. Ryan for over 30 years and I've never been able to express coherently my experience and feelings until I read this book. Mr. Ryan does an incredible job of translating complicated dynamics in a completely natural and real manner. That it is written in 1rst person narative and not from a distant doctors view from the ivory tower allows the average person to relate. The entire concept of "The Secret Life" is so dead on that I can think of no better way to identify what one goes through as a sex addict. I would think this would be fascinating reading for someone not suffering from this addiction. It is good writing. If the topic is relevent to your issues it will save your life.

This book was tasteful and interesting. I bought and read this book because I saw that my english professor was reading it--I didn't even know what it was about. When I bought it and saw it was about an addiction to sex I felt a little embarrassed--but soon got over it because it's not about sex, it's about a man with an addiction. I reccomend this as a literary read if nothing else. Ryan has true talent.

I never understood sexual addiction until I read this book. Ryan is incredible - he is able to completely convey what horrors this compulsive behavior meant for him. What said it all to me is when he explained he would go into bars and pick up whomever - a man, a woman . . . it didn't seem to matter! (He wasn't bisexual) Another shocker is that he had an incredible position at Princeton, but just couldn't keep his you-know-what away from his students. All that mattered is that he HAD to have sex, the compulsion was so incredibly intense, he just approached whomever was handy. In addition, this book, surprisingly enough, is amazingly funny (it reminds me of another memoir, "Permanent Midnight" in that way). Sometimes I found myself laughing out loud! It seemed that the humor was a great healer for him. My only regret is that he didn't reveal his treatment, which I would have loved to have learned about, as his compulsion was so deeply engrained. Bravo to him for "coming out of the closet" on this issue, writing this book, and showing us what this compulsion took from him.

Welcome back the Gorn! You Trekkies should remember them. Greenish lizard like creatures, one which Kirk battled one on one on Cestus III?

Well, enter the diplomat, Jean-Luc Picard. The story starts out with a younger Picard on the Stargazer. They encounter the Gorn, and Picard transports over to their ship and eventually to their homeworld. With very little known about the Gorn, except for accounts from Kirk's encounter, Picard somehow figures them out.

This sets up the current time, where the Gorn want to establish diplomatic relations with the Federation. Picard is the only one who is fit for this of course. While traveling there, the Enterprise comes upon a huge space station. While investigating it, power surges take place, and some of the crew manage to get transported back to the Enterprise, but Picard. Then, he is caught in a blinding beam, and wakes up 100 years or so in the past in an infirmary. Guess where? Cestus III, although the captain is not aware of this yet.

Eventually, he learns where he is, and in the meantime, is considered suspicious by all the colonists there, except the doctor, who he becomes attracted to. Going by the name of Dixon Hill, he finds out what Stardate it is, and knows it will not be long, before the Gorn invade and destoy this colony. He plans his escape, but before he even has a chance to move out, they find out he is not who he says he is.

Picard then reveals some information to the doctor about who he really is, since she is the only one who trusts him. Picard manages to save the colony from a reactor core overheating, but has to use force to do it, as everyone things he is sabotoging it. After doing this, he runs away into the canyons, trying to find his communicator, in the only hope of being found 100 years in the future. The Enterprise 1701-D, get the help from Bajoran pirates. As Picard is being pursued by the colonists, the Gorn invade. Being torn between obeying the Prime Directive, or helping the colonists, and the doctor who he cares about, he decides to help them, hoping it will not affect the future timeline. While helping them, he is beamed away back to the future, or his time. Toward the end of the book, Kirk, Spock and Bones appear.

All in all a great book. Was mislead a little, thinking Picard would be facing one on one with a Gorn like Kirk did.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Requiem by Michael Jan Friedman and Kevin Ryan is a classic. Where could you get Captain Picard, everyones favorite gnarley lizards (Gorn), time travel, interplanetary war, and camios by Kirk, Spock, and McCoy... only in this book.

This book starts out on the U.S.S. Stargazer Captain Jean-Luc Picard's first command, twenty-five years prior to his command of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Picard works on negotiations with the Gorn, but as we know the Gorn are sneaky for lizards and can hardly be trusted. But the Enterprise and her crew are now sent to finish the negotiations with the Gorn some twenty-five years after Picard's initial contact. While on their way, the Enterprize comes into contact with an alien space station, as the crew begins to evacuate, Picard is caught in a blinding light and is transported 100 years back in time to Cestus III.

At first Picard does not know where he is, then befriends the Doctor on the colony. All this time that Picard has been missing, Riker and the Enterprise crew have been searching , but to no avail, and the Gorn negotiations are going to hell in a hand basket. While on Cestus III, Picard witnesses the Gorn invasion and is in a position to change history.

This is classic TREK at its very best. You will not be disappointed reading this book, as it keeps the reader well engrossed with a tale written for the trekker in mind. You will be thouroghly entertained as war looms over the galaxy.

Picard is the key, the challenges are great, only now will the future of the Federation be held in the past?

I had so much fun reading this and many other Star Trek books in High School. Particularly good are books that elaborate on the more mediocre average Star Trek episodes. This book is one of them. It elaborates on the episode Arena, the first and only time we ever saw the Gorn in Star Trek. Time travel, another fun Sci Fi idea is also a part of this book. Seeing (in my imagination) Picard going back in time to the Original Star Trek is better than watching the DS9 episode Trials and Tribbilations (A crossover of the orginal classic episode Trouble with Tribbles). I good book. I highly recommend it if you're a Sci Fi buff.