Alles, das ich über das Buch sagen kann, ist, daß ich es liebte, und ich glaube, daß es sehr wert Leseversuch es ist.

Chances are if your thinking on buying this book in German, you've probably already read the Englsih version, so I won't bog you down with any lengthy opinion on the story itself except to say it is a modern classic, full of mystery and suspense that can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike.

Foreign language versions of English novels are notoriously difficult to translate, largely due to the high number of English words which have no exact translation in say, German or French. But on the whole, this was an exceptionally translated peice, with no major blunders sticking out (the Spanish version is full of them) The most obvious chnage is of "Hermione" to "Hermine" Perhaps Hermione would feel strange to pronounce to a native German speaker, not sure on that one.

A lot of people will tell you Spanish and French are far easier to learn than German. I found German more fun to learn, most people who say it is a difficult, technical language do not know that English and German belong in the same group of languages (Germanic) French, Spanish and Italian are in a completely different group (Romantic) So to brush up on language skills, or just to have fun reading a novel in another language, HP is probably the most fun and easy to understand novel on the market.

This translation of Harry Potter pulled even this native speaker of English along almost as well as the original book, and I would recommend it for anyone who's had a couple of years of German as a skill and vocabulary builder. If you're struggling with Goethe or Thomas Mann, you need something that will show you that German can be fun to read, and this book will do the trick nicely. I suppose once could carp at a few things here and there, but this translation is so superior to the French translation that I wouldn't waste my time doing that, except to mention that Hermione's name has for some reason been changed to Hermine. If you get stuck, at least the trot's readily available!

Some 15-20 years after being written, many of these essays hold up quite well, but I think it would be interesting to get Mr. Stein's update on them. (Perhaps that was the original pitch for _How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy_.)

Regardless of where you sit on the social/cultural/political spectrum, there are fundamental issues of character that ultimately must be held dear. Rather than use these issues as a bully pulpit for his own agenda, Mr. Stein writes about them with care, insight, and wit, and in so doing, gives us another fundamental issue about which we can agree: Harry Stein is a fine writer.

As the title imples, Harry Stein looks at a number of life's situations where doing the right thing isn't always the easy thing (or the obvious thing, for that matter.) Originally published as a series of essays in Esquire magazine, this book is an entertaining and thoughtful read.

This is the best book I have ever read in my entire life! I hope that everyone who hears about this book should buy this. Keep this book as a bible for life. You cannot get any closer to finding answers to the ultimate meaning of life. Seriously! This book is a very good read for anyone and everyone. BUY THIS BOOK NOW! Do it! Believe me, you will not be dissapointed.

I was really surprised when i found that Debbie Harry had written a book. It was really wonderful to start reading it and find that she was such a good author. She's open and honest, and she has really interesting ideas and philosophies which she shares in the book. "Making Tracks" really takes you into the world of Blondie and shows you what its like to get famous and tour and have to deal with bad management. Chris Stein's pictures are lovely and really add to the book. The only problem I had with the book was the miscellaneous photos of people never talked about or photos out of order with the text. But its kind of like "oh, we were chummy with this famous person" and "here's me with Ray Manzarek" which is cool.
Overall, it was a book that says exactly what its trying to, and does a good job of doing so.

This book traces the "rise of Blondie" from the early days when the group started, right up until the split. Many fabulous pictures, writings and lots of information. Looking forward to the new Biography coming soon and Keep on rocking Blondie!

Reading the book "Making Tracks", I found it very interesting and informative. Reading how Deborah and the boys had a rocky gritty start and really had to persevere in New York to make it big was entertaining. I liked the part where they had to convince people they were a rock 'n roll band but still wanted to play a disco song in "Heart of Glass." They found many of their followers did not get the irony. Nor the media also, as they thought Blondie was a punk band, a radical and rebellious term that held them back. Yet they broke out and made it to the big time, with more than their fifteen minutes of fame. Making Tracks is a book that lets you in on the inside of the record business. When I read that Blondie was paid a weekly salary, I thought this was kind of odd, even successful artists can be treated as simply lowly employees of a big corporation, just like anyone. And be just as powerless to change things. The book states how the movie scripts Blondie received were shockingly horrid. One movie script was about Harry in a band, and has a manager who kills a fan for publicity. Other scripts draw her as a nymphomaniac. So obviously they turned them all down. Too bad no independent film producer was found to make a good movie for the band. Rock 'n roll stars are big these days and still comeback because it seems the culture has unfinished business with them. There seems to be something about Blondie, there is of course, there is something behind the music we need to find out. Making Tracks is a book worth reading for those interested in music and the business of music. And of course the great band Blondie and the great singer Deborah Harry.

Miss Nelson is Back is written by James Marshall and Harry Allard, and was made for Miss Audrey Bruce.
This short story is about a group of nine children in classroom 209 with a teacher named Miss Nelson. When Miss Nelson is out for a week the children get a lesson taught to them that they will never forget.
Children will enjoy this book, because it is dealing with children and things that they go through.
Children can learn a good lesson for school about not messing with a substitute teacher , because one time you just might get a one that wont put up with any of their nonsence and could punish them very bad by possibly putting them in detention or worse.

Miss Nelson Is Back is written by James Marshall and Henry Allard, and was made for Miss Audrey Bruce.
This short story is about a group of nine children in classroom 209 with a teacher named Miss Nelson. When Miss Nelson is out for a week the children get a lesson taught to them that they will never forget.
Children will enjoy this book, because it is dealing with things that kids have to go through.
Children can learn a good lesson for school about not messing with a substitute teacher, because one time you might get a teacher that wont put up with any nonsense, and could punish them very bad by possibly putting them in detention or worse.

101 Dalmatians is written by Walt Disney Company, and its copyright is 1995.
I think that 101 Dalmatians is definitely appropriate for children. Kids can learn alot about counting in this story, and also they can learn about their favorite pets, dogs! If your child likes to read then this would be a great book for them, because it has a good amount of words for a child to read.
This short story is about two dogs that fall in love, and get their owners to fall in love also. Then the dogs had 99 puppies, and Cruella Devil gets two men to try to skin the puppies so that she could have a fur coat.

This rollicking novel of the 1919 Black Sox Scandal is a sort of hybrid of Ragtime, Eight Men Out &

You Know Me, Al. Luther Pond, a sportswriter for William Randolph Hearst's New York Morning Journal, shares the narration with "Buck" Weaver. Between them they weave a tale that intersperses portraits of John L. Sullivan, Ty Cobb, Hearst, George M. Cohan, etc. (here's a description of Cobb: "watching him play, it was possible to speculate, in defiance of logic, that winning was not his only concern; that Ty Cobb was consumed by another, more primitive objective: to annihilate the egos of other men" ) with the story of how eight players on the best team in baseball came to participate in a scheme to lose a World Series.

For anyone who knows the story of the Black Sox, much of the book will be familiar, but there are some nice set pieces--especially the Jeffries/Johnson fight--& the world of newspapering & Yellow Journalism is as much a focus of the story as baseball.

GRADE: B+

Also recommended, by Harry Stein: -How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace) (2000) (Grade: A-)

Hoopla was the most satisfying baseball novel I have ever read. There are two main characters and they take turns writing chapters. The first is fictitious sportswriter, Luther Pond looking back at his career from the perspective of the 1970s. The other character is real-life Black Sox player, Buck Weaver and his experiences in baseball before and after the scandal that rocked baseball.

The book is billed as a novel about the Black Sox, but it's not just an account of that season, but a reflection of the careers of two men who wound up in the middle of that notorious event.

Luther Pond begins his story as a cub reporter covering the famous boxer, John L. Sullivan, who himself is covering a big boxing match featuring the first black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson. Pond learns that Sullivan is now fat and alcoholic and doesn't even write his own copy for the newspaper. Pond goes on to demolish the legend of other athletes too by digging into Ty Cobb's past and uncovering information that suggests he also had his hand in fixing ballgames.

Buck Weaver is portrayed as a young cocky player who passivity gets him caught up in situations not of his making. Ultimately it gets him kicked out of baseball.

What really made the book work for me is that Stein writes with a style that is somewhere between Ring Lardner and Damon Runyon, two men who were both sportswriters at this time, but would later go on to greater glory through their fiction. For me that style captures the time as well as the story.

Some books you enjoy all the way through and some you enjoy more in reflection. Hoopla is definitely one you'll enjoy all the way to the finish.

I've been reading all the materials I can possibly track down on the 1919 World Series, the Black Sox, and Buck Weaver for some time and this book rates with the best of them. Hoopla is a timeline, recording the thoughts and memories of one of the Black Sox most prominent figures; George "Buck" Weaver, and intertwines them with the ficticious actions of the author. The chapters written by Weaver brought more realization to the events surrounding the 1919 World Series than any other material I've discovered. Buck writes with a humorous slang and much emotion as he describes a turn of events from his first days in the big leagues through the 1921 decision to ban him for life. Stein's fictional character also adds depth to this period of time lending a sports writers perception to the storyline. The 1919 World Series in all its fascination has been described a million times over, but to read it straight from the horses mouth gives it pure life. Anyone interested in this time period and or the events I've mentioned should sincerely enjoy this awesome book.

This book was unbelievable. A friend told me it was good enough to read out of school so i decided to try it. Wow. It was written really well, and it was also really interesting. One part was hysterical! I was laughing so hard, I had tears streaming out of my eyes. It's written above in amazons review. This book is a must read. Thanks Chav for the recc!

I've met Mr. Malkin, he is a very bright-almost James Bond like- couragious fellow. He is, from what I have come to understand-I collect his art workd-to the larger part of the Hebew world not acknowledbed as the man he is because he, came out and wrote about what he did. Taboo. But who could know? Malkin brought public things which-at least throughout the years of fiction were fact-aggravating people who've fictionalized these things and brought down a renewed "vendetta" against those-poor nazis-who've brought accountability to, what can I say? A bad time for the Germany" A couple thou years pass and will probably endure...After all, the Jews owned the banks, control the world and do all the secret things.

Yeah, right.

Malkin, an informed, knowledgable sort of fellow, not only gave light to a grim era, but took it further-he got backlisted by a mojor publisher. Malkin is a great man, not just for doing HIS duty, but for taking the time to create great works of art-I have a few-this is some weird and timeless- Cheese if Andy Warhol painted soup cans, this guy painted Nazis. But then again, who cares about Nazis anymore.

The book details his experiences as a yonug man and his own losses in war. This (book)tells it the way it was-to Malkin and will, and can only be appreciated as a piece of history.

A sort of Albert Speer from the other side.

Respectfully.

This is a true account of the hunting down and capture of the infamous Nazi. More thrilling and readable than any fictional work, Malkin does a wonderful job recalling this adventure in South America which occured over 40 years ago.

Filled with humor, pathos, history, and adventure, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Nazi-hunting, the Holocaust, Israel, espionage, or undercover operations in general.

This book was the basis for a TNT movie, starring Robert Duvall as Eichmann. I had the pleasure of seeing this movie, reading the book, and hearing Malkin speak in person within a short period of time. It is only a shame that, due to the Mossad gag order, we had to wait 30 years to hear this tale.

What a pity that this otherwise good medical thriller has such a weak ending. I tended to remember this weakness rather than the excellent first "80%". Also, the prose describing the body chemistry between Logan and the Italian belle is a well ... a bit teenager type puppy love

"The Magic Bullet" is one of the most exciting medical thrillers I've read. The novel's setting is the fictional American Cancer Foundation, which, like any elite institution, is populated by brilliant but not always likable figures. There are villains aplenty in "The Magic Bullet," and they seem willing to go to any length to defeat the enemy -- not cancer, but any cancer researcher who seems to be nearing a breakthrough.

Exactly how far they will go is the question that vexes the story's protagonist, a young researcher named Daniel Logan. Logan is pinning his hopes -- and his professional future -- on the slim chance that a drug which has proven ineffective for AIDS will have a second life as a treatment for breast cancer. But setback after setback has him wondering which is more toxic -- the cancer-fighting Compound J or his ultra-competitive colleagues.

Yes, this book has its flaws -- in particular, a "storybook ending" that seems written with Hollywood in mind. Nevertheless, the first 388 pages of this 390-page novel offer a suspenseful ride through the high-stakes enterprise of cancer research, where one scientist's victory is another's failure.

I'm sorry this book is out of print. In addition to its compelling portrayal of the subculture of medical research, it contains an achingly funny scene at Daniel's childhood home that would fit seamlessly into Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections."

This book is exciting, absorbing and thought-provoking. I couldn't put it down. It left me feeling that society as a whole had been violated by the political strength of a handful of self-serving, egotistical, glory-seeking medical practitioners. One can't help but wonder what really goes on behind the newspaper headlines we read. This book will make a first-rate movie. (Perhaps Matthew McConaughey will be cast as Dr. Logan.) I will definitely read more books written by Harry Stein

I have read a fair amount of contempoary conservative literature so an author does a great job when he/she teaches me something new. I have read books about political correctness on the campus ("Illiberal Education") and books on gender politics such as "Who Stole Feminism." I have often heard about the thought police on the campus but guess what? I never saw a discussion of which colleges and universities still foster free and open discussion. Stein, in his treatment of the issue of campus thoought control goes a step further than most authors in that after identifying some of the politically correct schools,he identifies some which swim against the tide and actually encourage open discussion and respect for tradition. Not surprisingly, University of Chicago rates highly in this regard. More surprisingly, Berkeley also gets high marks.

Stein is some what hampered by his own personal baggage. As the title implies, he is a former liberal who has changed. However, he has past issues to deal with. For example, both his wife and a former girlfriend have had abortions after he got them preganant so he discusses the issue while at the same time seeking to avoid being a hypocrite. It seems he wants to be pro life but can't be, so he discusses his new found respect for pro life activists while professing to remain pro choice.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, It is not one of the classics of conservative literature but I believe it's worth reading for its worthwhile insights.

I enjoyed Harry Stein's Book, "How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy : (And Found Inner Peace)." It had me nodding in agreement, laughing, and saying "Honey, listen to this..." That is because Mr. Stein is himself thoughtful and fun. It is also because his personal philosophical journey in many ways matches my own, that of my wife, and (I suspect) that of many other now aging baby boomers who were raised in the New York liberal Jewish tradition. Indeed, the title of the book could have been: "Hey, America Was Right and I Just Realized it Now!"

Where the book falls short is in coherence of style. "Falls short" may be too strong a phrase. Maybe the fault was in my expectations. What I expected was more of a David Horowitz type reasoned from every quarter approach, not the affable musings of a 'light' philosopher. In a sense this, too, is unfair. Mr. Stein's THINKING is not light, just his style.

So, in the end it gets four stars. If you are tired of all the election year positioning and repositioning, and would like a dose of sincere polical thought, "How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy : (And Found Inner Peace)" may be just the ticket. Just don't get caught reading it in the Old Neighborhood. ;-)~

Harry Stein, whose terrific baseball novel Hoopla I've long been a fan of, has written a very funny half polemic/half memoir about his own journey from Red-diaper baby to surprise member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Stein wrote the Ethics column at Esquire for many years and, inevitably for someone addressing ethical concerns, had periodically stumbled into conservative positions, but as late as 1992 he volunteered for the Clinton campaign. The real turning point in his life came when his wife had their first child and announced, to his initial shock, that she would be staying home from now on to raise the baby. Nothing in the book is more revealing than the reaction of friends and colleagues to her decision. They were almost uniformly flabbergasted at, some were even hostile to, the idea that she might give up her career to be a full time mother. As is so often the case, when forced to examine political questions through the prism of parenthood, Stein too found his own views becoming increasingly conservative:

...something odd began to happen--mainly to the country, and incidentally to people like me. As feminism and multiculturalism more and more sought to remake society, attacking much that had served humanity well as narrow or even antique, we concluded we could no longer in good conscience remain on that side. There was both too little respect for the accumulated wisdom of the ages and too much playing havoc with truth and common sense. Indeed, many of us were soon startled to find ourselves tagged conservatives (and often worse) for holding firm to the old-fashioned liberalism: a bedrock commitment to fairness and individual liberty.

These nascent flickers of rightward leanings were soon fanned into a genuine conservative flame by both the spectacle of the Clinton Administration and, even more so, by the frequently vicious reaction that his rather mild apostasy provoked at the workplace, in his social circle, and from readers. He was brought face to face with one of the ugliest aspects of modern liberalism, the intolerance for dissenting opinion and the willingness to demonize anyone who strays from liberal orthodoxy. By the time of the impeachment scandal, Stein realized that he was no longer a liberal Democrat he had become a Republican, albeit a pretty moderate one.

Alongside the account of his political trek, Stein launches into short polemical riffs on issues like abortion, affirmative action, religious freedom, gay rights and so on. To anyone who follows Republican politics and the Conservative Movement, most of this will be familiar, perhaps too familiar, but Stein does bring the zeal of a convert and it's always fun to watch the scales fall from someone's eyes. The best stuff in these sections is his personal experience with political correctness, which adds immediacy to his tale, and a seminal theory on why the French love Jerry Lewis.

My one quibble with the book is the same as I had for William Henry's fairly similar In Defense of Elitism. Lingering pangs of liberal guilt lead Stein to attack certain easy targets on the Right, even though it's not terribly clear how he differs with them, and given his own evolving views it's really hard to see how the attacks make much sense. For example, though he remains relatively pro choice, he does say that he believes that the fetus is a living being. In the next breath though he attacks pro-life absolutists as unreasonable. My own views on abortion are not dissimilar to Stein's, but having conceded that abortion takes a life, I don't see how I can then turn around and say that those who oppose all abortions are being extremists. Their views are actually consistent, it is mine which are morally flaccid. I'm the one who supports taking a position for reasons of social expedience; who then am I to pretend to be morally superior to those who simply extend my own views to their logical ends? Of course it's still early days for Stein and as he gets acclimated over here on the Right one assumes he'll lose the psychological need to curry favor with former fellow travelers by dissing his new comrades.

At any rate, it's an immensely enjoyable book, one that I recommend heartily. Welcome to the Dark Side, Mr. Stein.

GRADE: A-

Pretty bad, just sort of stupid, not that compelling, and no interesting field of knowledge that goes with it.

I'll admit that I only picked up "Infinity's Child" because it was on the bargain books pile, but when it came time to sit down and read the book, I was quite enraptured.

First off, Stein has written a strong heroine in Sally Benedict. Finally pregnant after a very long time trying, Sally is the editor of a local newspaper in a small town. When graves start to turn up violated - and Sally tracks down that all those graves belong to one family line - her own - things go for a macabre spin pretty quickly. The plot isn't trite - nor are you left totally in the dark. It's a delicate balance to teeter on the edge of having no clue and having just enough clues to jack up the tension, but Stein does it right. This is not a deep novel, but it's full of good thrills.

Sally's husband, Sally herself, and the villains of this book make it a very worthwhile read. It's a "turn the lights on and cover yourself with a blanket," sort of read, and if you enjoyed Ann Werner's "The People Next Door," (or another thriller with a fantastic heroine) you'll definately like this one!

'Nathan

In the past several years, many novels have been written about the manipulation of human genes. Unfortunately, most of the stories have similar plot lines. "Infinity's Child" is different. The plot is strongly personalized as it revolves around the heroine's pregnency. The author creates a readable, if not compelling, story. I didn't find myself staying up until the middle of the night turning pages. On the positive side, Stein creates a series of bad guys that crosses almost every job description. There are bad cops, bad journalists, bad medical personnel, mad scientists, and of course, the obligatory hit man. About the only career that escapes is the law. Furthermore, not until the last few pages do we find out who the bad guys really are. There are a couple of characters that you think are bad, then good, then bad, etc. This is a nice touch. And up until the final few pages, I couldn't speculate how the heroine was going to pull off the figurative escape. I! t wasn't easily predictable, but it was also slightly unsatisfying. The biggest fault I can find with the story, is that the author doesn't clearly connect the heroine's child with the scientists' research. But then again, we are dealing with a whole new area.