I absolutely love Ring Lardner. Some of his classics such as "Alibi Ike" and "Champion" are included in this volume. Champion is a frightening portrait of a brutal, totally amoral heavyweight champ who makes Mike Tyson look like a choir boy. The character is absolutely chilling and stands in sharp contrast to the many humorous characters Lardner has created. The beauty of his more humorous creations is that they bring a chuckle but are not so outlandish as be unreal. What is funny is that we all probably know people who are just like those satirized by Lardner. My criticism of this collection is that it omits my favorite Lardner story: "Mr. & Mrs. Fixit." We all know people like those lampooned in that story and it's too bad it's missing. My suggestion is to buy a collection that omits the short novel "You Know Mw Al" and buy one with a larger selection of shorter stories and then buy "You Know Me Al" separately. However, if you do buy this, you will still most certainly get your money's worth.

Shakedown Street is the perfect book for growing teenagers. Caro, the main character, is a young girl who lives with her traveling, religious mother. Caro and her friends deal with a lot of natural, emotional, and physical problems. Caro deals with troublesome situations such as drugs, puberty, sex, and the "hard knock life". Caro and her mother move from home to home. They make many friends who are homeless, sick, or perhaps melancholoy, such as themselves and live with them for a period time. Definetley a good book for the growing teen. I strongly reccomend this book to youths between the ages of thirteen and seventeen.

Schram, a master of Jewish storytelling, and leader of the Jewish storytelling movement in the USA, retells ten classic Jewish folktales from the Talmud, Aggadah, and Torah Midrash. Each story is followed by questions which help the readers and listeners to think more deeply about the lessons of the tales and reinforce its Jewish values. For example, in the Talmudic tale about why the Sun is large, the moon is small, and the stars seem even smaller, we learn about complaining and jealousy, and how you have to be careful what you wish for. Jeffrey Alon's watercolors help to capture the essence of the tales. My favorite tale was that of Honi, the Rainmaker, as retold from the Gemara. During a drought, the people of Jerusalem ask Honi to intercede for them and pray for rain. Then they complain that it is raining too little, and then too much. Once again, you have to be careful what you ask for, I guess.

This is a great example of the wonderful anti-hero Lovejoy mystery novels. Always at the mercy of whatever female he is "making smiles" with at the moment, he take Italian lessons and goes to Rome to steal an antiquarian piece of furniture from the Vatican. Quintessential Lovejoy, with gangsters, lovers and lots and lots of the lore and lure of antiques. Not to mention great Italian characters and descriptions of Rome as well, in Lovejoy's particularly acerbic style. I'll admit the British slang takes a bit to get used to, but it is a lot of fun.

Ask a preschooler to plan a perfect summer day with mom. Jonathan London has created just such a day in, What Do You Love? Here a mother dog and her young puppy are personified as they hike out from their country home on a bright sunny morning to share the day together. The author's question, "What do you love? is repeated throughout the text. Responses, given in both rhyme and rhythm, include "park slides, and piggyback rides, mud pies and Mommy's eyes". The bright watercolor illustrations are just as endearing as the text and they complement the story perfectly. Both young children and adults will enjoy reminiscing favorite childhood memories with loved ones as What Do You Love? is shared. M.J.L.

I can't wait to read this out loud to my library students. How can you not love the rhyming words and the illustrations of this book? With the language by itself, you could talk about the feel and the slang of the words. The art work of this book is done with different colored backgrounds that bring out wonderful moods. As an educator, I could use this story to tie in music, history, sound, and art. The kids are going to love it!

This is the second Jonathan Kellerman book I've read. And I like it, but I don't love it; nothing to write home about. I do like how the two disparate cases presented at the beginning of the book dovetail into a coherent single case towards the end. I like how a perceived threat to the investigation (Sharavi) turns out to be a key player in Alex Delaware's survival.

It all starts with one clever cop who likes to kill. He knows a preference for murder isn't exactly your everyday motivation to kill, so he forms a smarter-than-the-rest-of-them group that buys into the whole concept of eugenics (racial cleansing). With that murders happen one after the other.

In the end, there's an undercover assignment involving Alex, a last minute delay tactic which involves explaining the sequence of events and motives for those murders and a heroic save by employs of the Israeli consulate.

F - 2 (crotch grabbing, murder in the nude)
L - 4 (good dialogue, succinct descriptions of the environment)
A - 2 (lot of time spent driving around, interviewing people)
P - 3 (explained above)

* For a detailed explanation of what my rating system means, please visit my About You area and look up the review I wrote for The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum.

I have liked all of Jonathan Kellerman's books but I would have to say that this one is now my favorite. This book has it all, it is exciting, thrilling, intelligent and very chilling. Kellerman brings back a hero from one of his earlier non-Deleware books (The Butcher's Theater), Daniel Sharavi. He along with a skeptical Milo and Alex try to solve a horrible murder of the daughter of an Israeli diplomat. Kellerman's characters are so well drawn and his attention to detail is as always superb! If you like a fast moving thriller this book is one of the best!
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After a couple of disappointing books, Jonathon Kellerman is back in top form in his latest: "Survival of the Fittest". This book is a real page turner: a fast-paced, strong plot and interesting characters. All of the regulars are in the book - Alex Delaware, Milo Sturgis, Robin, and, of course, Spike. The reparte between Milo and Alex is as enjoyable as ever.

The book mixes serial murders with international intrigue. The (re)introduction of an Israeli police inspector (a character in a non-Alex Delaware Kellerman novel) made for some interesting interaction between the inspector and Milo. I hope that we see this character again in some future book.

It seems that in the recent past, Mr. Kellerman's books have all had sexual depravity as the motivating factor. It was a refreshing relief to read a book that was able to keep the reader's interest without strong sexual content. Keep up the good work, Mr. Kellerman. I am sure that there are many other interesting, nonsexual psychological theories and problems that would make fascinating premises for your future books.

With this collection of seven stories (three of which are reprints from Asimov's) Lethem continues to befuddle me. I loved Motherless Brooklyn, Gun With Occasional Music, and a short story in the Best of Crank anthologyÑbut I hated Amnesia Moon and another story in Best of Crank. While all the stories in this collection benefit from brilliant premises and Lethem's dexterous prose only the two best two ("The Happy Man" and "Vanilla Dunk," both from Asimov's) have true "endings." The other five trail off into nothingness or incomprehensible weirdness that make me wonder if Lethem's subconscious is bound by the old writer's adage that no ending is better than a bad ending.

"The Happy Man" features a dead man who is raised from the dead so he can financially support his family, the catch is that his consciousness must reside in hell part of the time. There he has bizarre nightmares that lead to an unfortunately predictable denouement. In "Vanilla Dunk," professional basketball players are issued suits giving them skills of former greats. From this interesting idea, Lethem fabricates one of the best sports stories I've ever read, as an obnoxious white kid wins the "draft lottery" and gets to be the next Michael Jordan and racial tensions ensue. "Light and the Sufferer" follows a crack addict, his brother, and the mysterious alien who follows them around New York. The humans' story ends rather obviously, but the significance of the aliens is left somewhat obscure. "Forever, Said the Duck" is about a cocktail party inhabited by clones of everyone who's had sex with the two hosts. It's promising enough at first, but degenerates into a psychedelic nonsense. The nifty notion of "The Hardened Criminals" is that convicts are physically hardened and used as bricks for a massive prison tower. Lethem seemed totally unable to make anything out of the premise, however, and when a young criminal meets his father in the wall, the result is rather forced. "Five ..." presents the mystery of a woman who has sex with a man and "loses" two weeks of her life. Unfortunately, the story implodes rather than leading anywhere interesting. The final story, "Sleepy People" is simply odd and makes you wonder why it was included.

Lethem is certainly a creative genius, however, he's still pretty hit or miss in harnessing his creativity. Sometimes he doesn't seem to know what to do with it and ends up writing himself into a bizarre corner. Still, I'll continue to read him to catch the sparkling stuff.

I loved _Gun with Occasional Music_ and _Amnesia Moon_ but this collection didn't really do it for me. _The Happy Man_ was great, I liked _And Forever, said the Duck_, _Vanilla Dunk_ was fun even though I hate sports. But like another reviewer said, no real conclusions, more like story fragments. His quirky style is great, he just needs more room to develop it.

It is the sign of a true master that none of these short stories bears any resemblance to another, yet each is in its own way outstandingly audacious.

Some worked better than others, and from reading the other reviews here it seems the selection varies from reader to reader. Yet the range and boldness of his ideas nearly staggers the imagination, and to have pulled this off -- not once, but seven times -- is astonishing.

Like Forrester and O'Brian before him, Mallalieu uses factual accounts of H.M Royal Navy during the age before steam to flesh out the bones of his fictional characters. Sadly, the flesh is meagre and quickly becomes a bloated bloodless corpse becalmed in a sea of ennui. Too often we see young writers tackle great themes only to founder in their own syntax. Sadly, there are no great themes and Mallalieu is not a young writer but an aged academic who has spent to much time in libraries and not enough on the Main, hoisting himself through the lubber's-hole over the futtock shrouds. Tales of Adventure on the high seas these ain't. Rather, a prolix insight into one man's wasted life in the cafeterias and chat-rooms of an East-Anglian polytechnic. Without any malice I would suggest the author make a sea-change and open a video shop

Readers and potential purchasers of 'The Prince of Wales...' should be advised to ignore the 'review' by Nathan Makepeace. One can tell in an instant that Makepeace's florid damnation of the book is made in either jest or abject ignorance. Perhaps when Makepeace's own novel is published - and as a publishing professional myself, I doubt his turgid style would find an audience - perhaps then he will come to understand the harm a mocking review can do to a first-time author.
For those yet to read Mallalieu's work - prepare yourself for a fleshy feast of literary originality and dryly sardonic, witty, and intelligent writing. In this age of dumbed-down, easy-to-read pap centred on midddle-class ennui and whingeing - Mallalieu is refreshing to read. I have tried to find out if this talented writer is still 'in the game' - but have had no success. ...
As for Nathan Makepeace - well, we're all entitled to our opinions....

...The Prince of Wales (a short 'novella' that tails a superbcollectionof ridiculous-eyed gags and mordant parodies) should be madeinto a feature film directed by no less than King of Kings - StevenSpeilberg, with Jones (the 'Prince' of the title) to be deftlyportrayed by the 'actor's actor' - Mr Tom Hanks... I say - Give thisbook a chance. Mr Mallalieu's cousin Jamahl sold me my copy from the back of his own station wagon when I was backpacking around Swansea, so I guess I feel asort of interconnectiveness with this book. I just hope other Amazon review readers don't get put off a great book...

Raising respectful children is a difficult task. Many parents try hard, and pray hard, to see that their children learn good manners and a good attitude. Those are some of my parenting goals.

This is our first Froggy book - it was given to my daughter as a Christmas gift. It is certainly not a book I would have bought for her. Other reviewers have written about the disrespect the Froggy shows toward his mother - and it is prevalent in this story.

The other concern I have with this story is the fact that it teaches children a number of diversions to use when they don't want to go to bed. I'm pretty sure that children will learn many of these on their own, but why read them this story and teach them to:

hide their toothbrush in the cookie jar?
to eat after brushing their teeth for the night?
to demand so much from their mother before going to sleep?

No! These are certainly not things I will intentionally teach my daughter.

The story does beg one other question - Where is Froggy's father in all this?

If you want to speed your child on his or her way to being ill mannered and disrespectful, this is the book for you.

The only plus, in my opinion, is the artwork. The book is well illustrated.

We love Froggy books. We have them all. However, I was surprised to see Froggy "back-talking" his mother and telling her what needed to be done before he'd actually go to sleep. Since we already had the book, I chose to use this to teach my daughter that Froggy is wrong to talk back to his mother. We talked about how long it was taking Froggy and how this was respecting his mother when she told him to go to sleep. Ok book but lessons are endless.

I was a little shocked to see the previous bad reviews of this book. Upon reading the concerns of parents I did come to see the observations they had made in a different light. Despite understanding how someone could conclude as they have, I personally must disagree. I don't expect this book to teach my child antics.

What my daughter (nearly 2 yrs old) has learned from this book is how to say "FROOOGGGYYY" when she sees the word. At her age, she enjoys helping me "find" things, and enjoys froggy's searches for lost items. She also identifies froggy's "brushing" in a positive tone, and "oops" with concern that froggy has spilled water. This story relates to her reality. And, above all, it is the first book she has tried to "read" on her own.

Nothing but positve results in my family! :)