The Demon in the Teahouse is the riveting sequel to the Ghost in the Taikado Inn. This book is irrisistable with the many suttle details all leading to different people. The books plot is seamless and all of the clues do add up in the end. I would recomend this book to anyone interested in historical fiction, mystery or suspense, or asian culture.

Before reading this book however I would recomend the Ghost in the Taikado Inn. This first book is also excellent and will help you understand everything in the second book.

Demon In The Teahouse (the sequel to Ghost In The Tokaido Inn) again takes the reader back in time to Ancient Japan. Sekei returns as the adopted son of Judge Ooka. Sekei's dream comes true when he is adopted away from his Merchant Father, and to a samurai. This book easily matches the excelence of Ghost In The Tokaido Inn, and possible even passes that level of greatness. I loved this book because it really gives you a feel of Ancient Japan, and the book also has a creative mystery.

I've been fascinated by Edsels since childhood, and while I've never been able to own one, I've collected lots of literature about the most famous flop in automotive history. Although there was familiar material in Mr. Bonsall's work, (the arrival of a new full-sized car just as the first import craze was beginning was the product of a decade-long lead time to launch the new make), there was also much I've never seen in print anywhere before--such as Robert McNamara's statement that the decision to discontinue the Edsel had been made even before its formal introduction! From the company's internal politics, to the design process, to the challenges of setting up the dealer network, no aspect of the Edsel's history is omitted. This is an absolute must for Edsel lovers, and should be worthwhile to anyone interested in the Ford Motor Company or automotive history in general.

Bonsall's treatment of the Edsel story is unique in that he first sets the historical stage and market conditions under which the Edsel program was conceived and executed. He does an excellent job of describing the reasons Ford needed the Edsel program, and why the program missed its mark. As Bonsall methodically moves the Edsel story forward, the reader is filled with a sense of impending doom, much like reading about the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Bonsall does an excellent job of drawing together the many disparate influences and elements that together charted the fateful course of the Edsel.

This is one of the best short story collections you can find today. The writing is profound and meaningful. Highly recommended!

This collection of Kennedy's fiction is as good a collection of short stories as you're likely to find this year. Kennedy's characters have a way of confronting their fears without being fearless, thus rendering them with the greatest sense of humanity. You can absolutely feel them in your life and that is a feat few contemporary authors are able to achieve. There is a resolute wisdom to the people who populate Kennedy's stories, yet they always feel within reach of our own human experience. Kennedy's spot-on wit is apparent in many of these stories as well and after reading a few of them, you know you are in the hands of a writer who knows his craft and his audience, but more importantly, knows his own characters. There have been few collections of short stories that have moved me as much as in "Drive, Dive, Dance & Fight," and I couldn't recommend this collection highly enough.

I was given this book by a friend who knew I'd had a tough time in my divorce. Reading Exiting Bohemia took me back to that time and let me know that it is possible to survive anything, even though sometimes it feels you can't. I think this is the first book that accuratly tells the man's side of divorce and shows that women aren't the only ones who grieve. I recommend this book to any divorced woman who is curious about the other half of the story.

The best and most honset true story I have ever read. This book totally exceeded all of my expectations. The author is both the Hero and the Villian, but you are still pulling for him at every turn of the page. A very emotional ride that leaves you thinking about your own life, and the decisions you yourself have made over the course of your life and how they affected other people.

I can't wait until the Author's release of his next book. I'll be first in line to buy a copy.

Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt gives us a chilling look into what it was like to live and just survive under a barbaric system; one where one's neighbors and friends became their enemies and pursuers in the aim to please the occupation forces of Nazism. Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt and others like him survived against incredible odds to their survival. It makes one reflect on and cherish each and every day that we live in freedom without the tremendous tyranny that Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt, his family, and many others endured on a day to day basis for several years. Thank you Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt for your sincere and honest reflections.

Among the most common questions asked of Holocaust survivors are why the Jews didn't fight back: Why, it is wondered, did they let their families go to their death so easily? The recollections of Blatt, a survivor of the extermination camp Sobibor, in Poland, where Jews staged a successful revolt, addresses these questions in a frank and gripping narrative. Blatt's account demonstrates how the Germans kept Jews in Poland subjugated through random terror combined with promises that the status quo would be maintained if the Jews cooperated. By the time Blatt reached Sobibor with his family, it was too late for resistance. Perhaps the most frightening, and dispiriting, part of Blatt's account is how Christian Poles at times robbed, terrorized, or even murdered Jewish fugitives, such as the Sobibor escapees. A chilling narrative; highly recommended for Judaica collections and Holocaust specialists as well as general readers.

This past weekend I finished the "Gedanken Fictions", which is a collection of short stories edited by Thomas Easton. All the stories in this collection are first rate - - Easton is, after all, a book reviewer. Some stories are thought provoking, others moving and still other ones are funny. In particular I enjoyed "Out Of Copyright" by Charles Sheffield. It is a story about cloning individuals from the past when the copyright on their genetic material expires. It just so happens that this past weekend, a controversy erupted over profiting from the sale of Ted William's DNA. Even more strange is that ever since I read "Sparrowhawk", I have developed a curiosity about what Easton is up to. One of the reasons I read the "Gedanken Fictions" is because after reading "Sparrow Hawk", I was shocked to hear the media reports about the remote control rats being developed for search and rescue work. In "Sparrowhawk", Easton envisions animals being genetically engineered organic machines used to replace the internal combustion engines that are destroying our environment. He has another unique story along those lines in this book as well.

Wildside Press are doing a great service of taking risks and keeping valuable work available.

One of the main threads of science fiction has long been the dramatization of scientific and technological ideas, especially those of physics and astronomy and their effects on human lives. The purpose of this book is not to survey all of sicence fictoin, nor all of hard science fictoin, but to present a few stoires that illuminate some of the issues discussed in courses on science, technology, and society, which are currently served by nonfiction books and anthologies.

This book's title, Gedanken Fictions, refers to a basic tool of science, the gedanken or thought experiment that must be used when laboratory experiments are not practical or possible.

Dr. Thomas A. Easton is Professor of Life Sciences at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine. He is also the author of Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science, Technology and Society.

I like country, just don't spend much time actively in it. This treatment of the subject is thorough and easy to follow in its points. Written from a solid Christian perspective, the authors make the consistent point that country has as its roots a Christian, gospel orientation.

While such orientation does not predominate, it is there and has always been there. Now, contemporary country fights the battle with other venues of the pop culture. Amazing the story of Alan Jackson at the CMC awards. Right on Alan. I knew this man was a winner!

One learns much about the real world from country music. Nothing is hidden in the lyrics of this music, it tells it like it is. People can relate to it. It's not all the hype of pop. Until, Garth et al started letting it seep in.

Suggest also Mark Zwonitzer's excellent book on the Carter Family where he shows how the Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis types cut their musical teeth on Country Gospel, then lost it to the commercialism.

What we sell our souls for! This book exposes that while admirably detailing how traditional country supports classic Christian values. Well done and great read!

While I'm not a real fan of country music myself, I did find this book to be a great read. Country music may be the last vestige of popular American culture that still has Christian underpinings but it has also begun to drift as it is swallowed up by the "no-brow" culture of marketing. The authors do seem to have some trouble with facts (Bristol is in Virginia and Tennessee not Kentucky and the relationship between Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart) but other than a few minor points the thesis still holds up.

This is the ONLY children't book available on the market teaching the importance of water safety. It's beautifully illustrated;children immediately identify with the lively, fun fruit characters. Louie and his friends are delightful, but more significantly, underscore a crucial message about the importance of water safety. This book should be 'required reading' for any small child exposed to open water. This beautiful little book makeslearning fanciful and fun, while imparting a potentially life saving message.

Written by Jeana Thomas, Camp Of Champs is a children's picture book about water safety, illustrated by Lisa Allen Triefenbach in vivid color. Since drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death for children under age 14, the message of SAFE - Stop and Find an Adult before you Enter the water is a welcome "must" for every young child, regardless of whether he or she already knows how to swim. Camp Of Champs teaches children to wear a life vest while learning to swim, to always have someone good at swimming watching, and never to chase after a toy that falls into the water. The eye-catching, playful, full-page illustrations help drive home the potentially life-saving message of water-safety. Camp Of Champs is a superb gift book excellent for being read aloud to very young children, and more importantly, carries the highest recommendation for its contribution to child safety.

This is a great read for those interested in writing their life story. Mr. Thomas goes from early childhood through retirement, and being a 20-something, some of the information did not apply. However, it is still well worth the reading. He has specific prompts, and works with small "chunks" of life. Entwined are guides to good writing, and other aspects of writing a great story.

I've worked most of my adult life as an actor. One of my grandchildren was watching television and saw an old movie in which I appeared. "Grandpa, is that you?" After having to explain what I did for a living, it occurred to me that I was no different. I knew very little about my ancestors. At the time, I didn't know what my own grandfather (who died before I was born) did for a living. I wanted to make sure that future generations of my family know that I existed and what I did for a living. It was then that I realized how important it was to write my life's story to preserve my legacy.

Of all the books I researched when I first set out to undertake this task, I found Frank P. Thomas' "How to Write the Story of Your Life" to be among the most concise and most helpful. It became my constant companion as I spent those long hours at night in my study pounding away on my keyboard or sitting at the dining room table handwriting a vignette to be added to the book.

Thomas' book is laid out in an easy-to-read format, lending itself not only as a step-by-step guide, but sectionalized in such a way as to be used as a handy research resource manual. There is a lot of sound advice contained within his book that I found to be highly effective. For example, it helps not to ignore news and current events occurring during the telling of one's life, even if you don't actually relate the news items directly. By spending a few hours in the library to research certain magazine articles and newspaper headlines from a particular period, I found my memory banks were stimulated and I was often able to capture a flavor of the political climate, social mores, fashions, and/or cultural fads of the time. Those influences were incorporated into the events of my life. Sometimes I was able to relate to current events of the time directly, which helps to allow readers to identify with you personally.

Another important lesson I learned was that in order to capture and maintain a reader's attention, you must stimulate as many of his/her senses as you can. Therefore, I found myself going through my text trying to find places where I could introduce stimuli to sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.

This is but a mere sampling of the invaluable direction I received from Thomas. The result was my autobiography was published under the title "Surrender the Jealous Mistress" (available through amazon.com), which I'm told is engaging and reads like a novel. If that's true, then I attribute a large portion of that compliment to Frank Thomas' sound advice and guidance.

No matter how insignificant you may perceive it to be (it's not), I encourage you to attempt to write your life's story. Once that decision is made, I highly recommend obtaining a copy of Frank Thomas' book, "How to Write the Story of Your Life," to guide you through the process.

F. Scott Fitzgerald may be remembered most often as the author of "The Great Gatsby", but during his lifetime, he earned most of his income by writing short stories for magazines. This compilation includes many of his earlier classics, all dealing with the same wealthy class of people that appear in his novels. "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is a delightful tale about the lengths (literally) that girls will go to in order to fit in socially. "The Offshore Pirate" is a compelling and romantic story with an exciting and climactic ending. In addition, "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz", a longer and quite famous story has a brilliant plot; a boy visits his wealthy friend's home, and while he enjoys himself immensely and even falls in love, he finds out that the visit may come at a hefty price. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a hilarious story about a man born looking like he is 70 years old, and looking progressively younger as he "ages", so that he eventually seems younger than his grandson. All in all, you cannot miss with any of his stories, and they make great evening reads - one a day will surely keep the doctor away!

Nostalgia has an inevitable foreshortening effect upon reputation. For most of us, Fitzgerald is the perenially young, perenially arch chronicler of the 1920s Jazz Age -- of bathtub gin, flappers, rumrunners and boats born ceaselessly back.

This collection of short stories does much to restore an unappreciated side of Fitzgerald the writer, most notably his willingness to experiment with technique, his almost existential grasp of human absurdity and his articulation of unease and pessimism about the possibilities of the American Dream.

The stories range widely in quality from precious parodies from his Princeton years ("Jemina") to profoundly moving glimpses of the human condition ("The Lees of Happiness"). Even the most insubstantial of the stories printed here are worth the read for, if nothing else, they show that even at his youngest and roughest, Fitzgerald had a keen grasp of voice and description and how to use it to breath life into wispy plot lines.

I take issue with some of the critical recommendations contained in Patrick O'Donnell's fine introduction to the collection. I did not, for instance, find "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" particularly impressive. I think the best stories are those that hew to a psychological theme prevalent in Fitzgerald's fiction and his adult life -- the dread of what comes after youth and a nostalgic fixation on youth as the best time in a person's life. The stories I liked most -- "The Lees of Happiness," "The Ice Palace," "The Cut Glass Bowl," "Benediction," "The Four Fists," "'O Russet Witch!'" -- all tackle this theme.

Many of the stories in this volume aren't profound, but are just a delightful read. I defy you, for instance, to read "The Camel's Back" without bursting out loud in laughter over its protagonist's gyrations and setbacks in quest of his true love.

There is a wistfulness at the center of Fitzgerald's prose and his life story that seems to have faded from our collective remembrance of him as a Great American Author. This volume does much to remind us of that winsome note and to remind us that Fitzgerald paid dearly for it in his personal life as it lit up his writing at the same time.