Mrs. Tillby travels off to visit different places in search of a new home. She tries the city, the beach, the mountains, a lakeside cabin, an adobe hut in the desert, and other different ways of living. But no place feels like "home." She comes across a nice comfortable motor home so she can keep traveling, but still be at home. The nice illustrations, friendly people, and interesting places Mrs. Tillby visits makes it a great book to read. It shows that there are many different places to live, and each one has something wonderful to offer. It may open children's eyes up to the different ways people live, and although they are not the same, they make those who live there happy.

The book I read was Someplace Else. The author of my book was Ben Shecter. My book was about this little boy whose life was already messed up. His parents went broke and had to move into this beat up trashy apartment home. Which from there he thought his life was ruined right then and there. He was so miserable, and he was so mad that he would not speak to anyone, and he would plan on running away to nicer place. The family was a family of four. There was a mom and a dad, and they had two kids that were boys. The youngest boy who was the miserable one. His

This book was a good book.Even though I hate reading I still read it.This book is mainly about a boy named William Thomas Emerson.His parents die and he runs away to Boston.He gets a family at a motel and becomes a messager to find things out about the war.The only problem I thought with this book was they didn't tell about the war.This book told about what happened in the beginning,but at the end when everyone chose to leave Boston from the war Will stayed and that was it.This book had good titles for things,Interesting hook,and had a nice change of seasons and time.Overall I'd give this book an 8/10.

I liked this book because it tells a lot about what was happening during the revolutionary war. Its a book about a boy named William. When his family sits down to eat supper. They said that it has been storming all day and suddenly lighting stricks everybody but Will. The next monring Will wakes up and realieses that his family is dead. So then he gets adoped by the Marsh family. as he is taking some books back he hears some people talking about the British soldiers killed a dester by there ship now he worries!!!!

I read this book to my 6 year old who is interested in the Revolutionary war. It was hard to find a book to tell about this period of time that was fitting for a 6 year old child. He was on the edge of his seat though most of the story and begged me to read "just one more page"

It is written in journal form so you learn about the people he meets and everything that happens first hand. At the end it tells you what happened to each person from the story...the part my son found most interesting.

Dispite my mild dissappointment with the author, I enjoyed gaining greater insight into my political hero. While I do not consider myself qualified to critique anyone's writing ability, the author too frequently repeats certain otherwise interesting Goldwater quotes. Unfortunately, this impression will compete with my overall favorable feeling.

I happened to read this encomium to the late Senator Goldwater in the midst of the Presidential election imbroglio. Senator Goldwater's dignity, candor, courage and conviction stand in stark contrast with the crass self-interest of many of today's leaders, and their policy-by-poll approach to governance.

Barry Goldwater is one of the most misunderstood leaders of his generation . . . his consistently literal interpretation of the Constitution and unwavering fealty to the Rule of Law caricatured by a press with a penchant for oversimplification, and a viciously cut-throat LBJ political machine (aided by the Rockefeller wing of the GOP). It was only in the twilight of his life that this political giant was accorded the respect he deserves.

This book is spectacular...it gives an in-depth view into the life of Barry Goldwater, one of the founders of conservatism in America. What an interesting look at his life and accomplishments. Wonderfully written!

As a youngster I enjoyed this book because it showed me what it was like to be a young TV star in those days.

But the book also showed me what the actors on the Brady Bunch were really like. I especially enjoyed the chapter where he talked about his relationship with Maureen Mcormick. And at the end it tells you the shocking story of what the 6th seasonof the Brady Bunch would have been like if it aired.

It was indeed a good idea for Barry Williams to write this book because it helps us to understand his experience as a Brady. And it was overall, a great book!

I was one of the countless hordes of children who grew up on the Brady Bunch. I still remember reserving Friday nights at 8:00 p.m. EST, channel 7 (ABC) and looking forward to the next installment of the Baby Boomer's favorite TV family.

Barry Williams' book is a real treat. He first describes his interest in acting from an early age and the doors that were opened to allow him to pursue his dream. I loved Barry's behind the scenes descriptions of the auditioning for the parts and the ultimate selection of the cast.

Barry has a wonderful, evilly delicious gift for satire. I love it! On just about every page, Barry has a very logical point couched in satirical terms. For example, he challenges the absurdity of a 1970 episode where a visiting doctor diagnoses Cindy with tonsillitis simply because she sneezed. He also points out the illogic in many episodes that viewers were happily oblivious to during the 1969-1974 Brady years.

Barry provides very interesting portraits of his fellow cast and creators of the show. His "glimpse behind the curtain" makes for some very interesting AND very funny accounts! I love the inclusion of actor Robert Reed's scathing memos. Articulate and well versed, Reed makes no pretense of liking the show in his writings. Since he felt so strongly against the show, it is ironic that he plays his role of Brady patriarch so well. Too well, in fact. I recently saw on "Time and Again" (msNBC) a profile of the creation and the staying power of "The Brady Bunch" and one woman was identified as a "Bradyologist." The show has even added to our lexicon!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Growing Up Brady". It's written in a lively, fast-paced style with plenty of hip humor and candid confessions. Williams discusses the good, bad, and ugly "Brady Bunch" moments. Particularly striking was Robert Reed's dislike of the show and his antagonism with Sherwood Schwartz, creator of the Brady Bunch. Schwartz really wanted Gene Hackman for the role of Mike Brady. If anyone but an actual Brady Bunch actor had written this book, it would be easy to dismiss much of it as idle gossip, but Williams was there and knows the truth. I think he tells it here.

As other reviewers have complained, this book is lacking a plot and doesn't have much of a structure. A reader looking for a a more clear and simplistic Burroughs should try out his pulpish but entertaining _Junkie_ and _Queer_. These books use an autobiographical format to show the author falling into a life of drugs and homosexual dependence, which the author clearly viewed as entrapping and morally wrong, even as he fell into them and maintained a objective viewpoint.

Naked Lunch takes these themes and greatly improves them. After starting with a scene of the protaganist fleeing the law, it's broken into vaguely related scenes of several pages each. These scenes are often bizarre or disgusting, but are always intriguing. Taken together, they give an impressionistic look into the life of an addict. They are often extremely funny, and the writing is very impressive. I enjoy pulp fiction, and Burrough's take at pulp fiction at the end, with Hauser & O'Brien, is perhaps the strongest piece of hard-boiled detective writing I've ever read.

Drugs are central to Burrough's vision, but this isn't really a drug book, either, and is more about Burrough's compelling if slightly twisted philosophies. Heroin is used as a central metaphor for systems of control that Burroughs sees elsewhere - in domineering characters, in 50's politics, in modern science, in patriarchies. If the reader can get past the initial shock of the book, it's extremely readable and I'd recommend it highly

There has been much written about Naked Lunch, so much that the basic facts can be stated from memory: written in Tangiers while the author was addicted to heroin, edited by Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, sold to Olympia Press in Paris and Grove Press in New York, made the author famous and ranked him with Henry Miller and the Marquis de Sade, suffered obscenity trials that ended literary censorship in America, filmed as a movie by David Cronenberg almost twenty five years after publication. And don't forget that Steely Dan got their name from this novel but they claim they never read it.

That is the story of its life: few people have actually gotten through the whole book. It reads in fragments with inconsistent characters morphing, changing and altering identities. Dream, hallucination, reality and drug visions blend and merge and disperse. Scatalogical routines take coherant form and read like vaudville humor from a bathroom wall, then deteriorate into filthy fragments and irreverant and often disgusting descriptions of sado-masochistic sex acts. Everyone is a junkie, everyone is gay, everyone screws teenaged North African boys, everyone is insane, psychotic or diseased. Doctors kill their patients, police murder their suspects, drug addicts infect their marks with insect diseases and turn into centipedes during sex acts that threaten to nauseate the reader.

So what does it all mean? What is the motivation or the reasoning behind it all. Burroughs was no fool and he had a strong moral intent all the way. He considered himself a reporter who has entered behind enemy lines, like a photojournalist who returns from Vietnam with pictures of napalmed babies. The title Naked Lunch evokes an image of someone being wised up to what they are eating. Burroughs is depicting the relationship between the junkie and the drug dealer to be a metaphor for all control systems, for all vampiric systems whether it be capital punishment, abuse of political power, police states, etc. By the time Burroughs wrote this novel he had suffered through decades of abuse at the hands of federal agents, narcotics police and the customs officials of all the third world borderlines that he crossed as he moved from New York to Texas to New Orleans to New Mexico to Mexico City to Tangiers, all the time running from the police, none the least of reasons being that he shot his wife through the head during a drunken game of William Tell (she put a glass on her head and challenged him to shoot it off -- he lost the challenge).

Burroughs was a troubled junkie from a distinguished southern family, a Harvard student who studied archeology and linguistics, who studied medicine in Vienna, who went to New York to find work and wound up hooked on heroin. He took part in the birth of the Beat Generation in 1944 before setting off on his long tortured odyssey that led to more drug addiction, the death of his wife, and the bottom that he hit in Tangiers. He went there in the mid-50's to impress the exiled community of writers including Paul Bowels (who wrote the Shelting Sky) but who rejected him because he was just a filthy junky with a gun fetish. Instead he wrote Naked Lunch. It is a descent into Hell chronicled by a man who was to become one of the best writers of the 20th Century.

The events that led to the writing of Naked Lunch is chroniciled in the amazing documents known as the Letters of William Burroughs 1945-1959. These letters were the source of Cronenberg's screenplay of Naked Lunch, more so than Naked Lunch itself. Read the letters first, then read Naked Lunch. Then see the movie. In that order. It will all make sense...in the end.

A book that changed our cultural landscape. It never became dated. It exists outside of time and space, in the Interzone of our polluted minds.

This book really gets to me. It's got all of the bells & whistles of taking an altered trip, including extreme hallucinations, time-shifts and paranoia. ("I can feel the heat closing in."-first sentence.) It's dark, twisted, demented, funny, contemplating, with an anti-heroin finallity. Bill comes to many conclusions on various levels; touching everything from power-abuse to medical abuse, to sex abuse and all other things that are happening either without our knowledge, or without our care. I've read somewhere that this is a cut n paste job made for artistic value to deviate from what readers are used to --but this is irrelevant. It's a masterpiece of social commentary, looking deep within the mind of one who is in the midst of what is really happening... seeming to use drugs in order to cope with it... and realizes the horrid state of affairs Western society is actually emmersed in. Put Bill Burroughs alongside Samuel Beckett, George Orwell and Oscar Wilde, in telling it like it is, holding nothing back.

This guy just flat out writes well. This is the third book of his that I've read, and although it's not his absolute best, it's still a very good read. The book is actually deserving of 3 1/2 stars.

style is dense, yet compelling. narrator spends half the time on introspection, slowing the pace to explain his thinking. the one-upmanship in legal strategies becomes as tedious as reading commentary on a sports event. the main character's ruminations come off more like polonius than hamlet. still, worthwhile reading.

About 75% of this novel takes place in the courtroom. If you love well done trial scenes this is the book for you. The technical aspects of the trials seemed quite complex at times, but were always interesting. I was amazed that the author, who doesn't seem to have a law degree, was able to write so convincingly about the legal world. The author even varied from the usual protagonist stereotype of "tall, dark and handsome." His hero prosecutor, is short, dumpy and not handsome at all. The first thing I did after reading the book is to come to this website and order all the other Gruenfeld novels.

Though the knowledge and experience which the authors possess is clear, my impression was that, rather than taking classic concepts of spiritual direction and incorporating the insights of modern psychology, they were accepting the latter as truth and adapting the former to fit them.

Certainly, the sort of distance and authoritarian stance of previous centuries, which the authors rightly see as passe (though it worked in its time), requires much adaptation to be effective today. Yet, in recent decades, the essence, comprising the accumulated wisdom of many centuries, too often has been sacrificed because how to apply the accidental is unclear. The authors make some areas rather murky and puzzling. For example, one case cited is that of a religious Sister who is spiritual director to a married woman who believes her life and prayer have improved in the course of a current adulterous relationship. The authors believe the director should keep silent, because to do otherwise would be following an agenda of defending marriage rather than being open to the other woman's needs - and rely on her having other sources of information, or a personal intuition, that may influence her assessment of her situation. This is quite contrary to any classic view, since one of a director's ministries always has been to assist the other in a truly honest view, unhampered by self-deception - and adultery, a clearly immoral action in Christian teaching which a director would have an obligation to correct, has never been viewed as helpful in the spiritual life.

My impression was that, in encouraging those in this ministry to embrace current trends in psychology and the like, many of the key parts of the ministry (however unpleasant they may be at times) were neglected.

By spiritual direction here is meant that central and often avoided part of pastoral counseling that deals not so much with people's many problems and struggles as with their experience of and personal relationship to God. It is a specialized and all important area that is easy to side step in normal counseling because of the relative ease with which other problems can be addressed and/or because of an inbuilt fear on everyone's part of a relationship with the almighty. This eminently practical book points out in great detail the paths by which one may help another to foster this all-important relationship which is more basic and prior to resolving other symptomatic difficulties in the individual's life. It describes as well the distractions, pitfalls, avoidances and other problems that beset director and directee along the way. This is probably the best text available in this area. Its strength comes from the massive experience of the authors in doing, teaching, and supervising spiritual direction, in their theological, spiritual and psychotherapeutic background, and in their ability to organize and present the material clearly and cogently. It is a must in the library of any spiritual director, could profitably be read by anyone seeking direction, and is well worth frequent rereading.

Very practical and helpful guide to spiritual direction. When one wants to know how to deal with directees' difficulties, this book provides answers across many aspects on opening them to God. For spiritual directors, this book gives many leads on how to reflect on one's spiritual direction.

Miles' biography is intended for the general reader. There is good background on Burroughs' childhood, a good bit of biographical detail throughout, and the book doesn't delve into the written works all too deeply. Being one of three general biographies written about Burroughs, it bears comparing to the books by Ted Morgan and Graham Caveney. Miles' book is not as scholarly or exhaustive as Morgan's book, Literary Outlaw, but is both more scholarly and more exhaustive than Caveney's, Gentleman Junkie. It was written after Literary Outlaw, so there is more information on the Kansas years here, including a chapter entitled "Shotgun Art".

This is a biography intended for a general readership. Miles' familiarity with his subject may make this of interest even to the Burroughs beginner. There is a bibliography of works written by Burroughs (but none about him), and an index.

Miles seems to be Burroughs' biggest fan. This is not a critical appraisal of Burroughs OR his works. At times the writing is very bad. Still, Miles had the advantage of a fascinating subject.

If you haven't read a book about Burroughs before, read Literary Outlaw, by Ted Morgan, and pass this one up.

ken32

This was the first biography of Burroughs I read; I also have the Ted Morgan biography, but I don't think a direct qualitative comparison is possible. While Morgan goes into enormous biographical detail, Miles puts Burroughs' work in central position, and his analyses are really perceptive and thorough, with demonstrative use of passages from the text as well as references to relevant events in Burroughs' life. It is, as other reviewers have said, really the best existing introduction to Burroughs' work - I don't know if I could have made it through the cut-up trilogy without the preparation of reading this book first.

I should also point out that some biographical details are here which are not in Morgan, e.g. the use of real names where Morgan substituted pseudonyms.

Makes me want to go back quickly - brings across the charecter of the place !

For anyone who likes history, this book is an uneven, but overall excellent and very enjoyable, series of exercises in "counterfactual" history. Not the silly, frivolous, or nonsensical kind, where Robert E. Lee all of a sudden is given a nuclear bomb, but instead serious, meaty (even highly PROBABLE) ones, like what would have happened if there hadn't been a mysterious plague outside the walls of Jerusalem, or if there had been a Persian victory at Salamis, or if Genghis Khan's drunken third son (Ogadai)had not died just as his hordes were poised to conquer (and probably annhilate) Europe, or if Cortes had been killed or been captured Tenochtitlan, etc.

The major flaw with this book is that the essays are of somewhat uneven interest level, style, and quality. Personally, for instance, I found the essay on the Mongols to be fascinating, sending chills down my spine! "D Day Fails" by Stephen Ambrose, on the other hand, didn't do much for me at all, nor did "Funeral in Berlin." In general, I would say that the essays covering earlier periods in human history tend to be better than ones covering more recent history. Possibly this is in part because the later periods have been covered to death. I mean, how many "counterfactuals" on the US Civil War can there be before we get sick of them? But a well-written, tightly-reasoned counterfactual which, based on events hundreds or even thousands of years ago, quite plausibly leads to a result where there is no Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, or Western culture at all, is absolutely fascinating in my opinion. If nothing else, books like "What If?" show how important CHANCE is in human history, as well as the importance of the INDIVIDUAL, as opposed to some Hegelian/Marxist-Leninist historical "inevitability." The bottom line is that it is rare that anything is truly "inevitable", and the aptly titled "What If?" gives us some excellent case studies.

Who hasn't wondered about a decision not taken or the string of uninterrupted causation that is required for any single person to exist? Think about your own life: the chain of events which resulted in your parents meeting; how you ended up in your current job; the college you attended; you never attended college; or how you met your current significant other. We are all shaped by historical choices, both ones made by ourselves, and those made on a scale that can alter history.

"What If?" gathers some of the world's foremost military historians to offer hypothetical counterfactuals, including: What If Alexander the Great had died in battle at the age of 21, before he had built an empire? What if the American Revolution had resulted in disaster? What if certain key battles in the American Civil War had changed? This is fun reading as it is always interesting to consider alternative paths not taken or paths unavailable by happenstance.

This book contains a number of excellent examples of counterfactual speculation, with only a few medicore essays. The authors examine how individual actions can have an impact as can the whims of weather.

This is an enjoyable book and, because of the broad area of military history, invites the potential for sequels. For example: One counterfactual I've always wondered about occurred in December of 1814 here in my home town of New Orleans. A prosperous son of Creole planters was awakened by the sound of British troops landing at the back of his plantation. Young Mr. Villere jumped out the window and headed for New Orleans, dodging a shot from a British sentry. Villere arrived in New Orleans and spread the alarm. Gen. Andrew Jackson gathered his forces and launched a surprise attack on the British. The British, unsure of the forces facing them, slowed their advance to give time to consolidate their forces. This gave Jackson time to throw up some defenses on the plains of Chalmette. Within 2 weeks the British had been defeated after suffering enourmous casualties attempting to storm Jackson's fortifications.

But what if the British sentry had not missed young Mr. Villere? Had the British continued their advance it is conceivable that these veterans of the Peninsular campaign could have won the Battle of New Orleans. Today people only remember that the Battle of New Orleans was fought after a peace treaty had been signed. But the treaty had not yet been ratified. Further, in the treaty the British recognized the status of borders prior to the war. But Britain had never recognized the Louisiana purchase, as the Spainish had violated a treaty with Britain when Spain secretly sold Louisiana to France. Britain could have attempted to keep New Orleans. This would have meant a widening of the war. It also begs the following question: Would there have been sufficient British troops to win at Waterloo?

As you can see counterfactual speculation leads to a never ending string of alternative possibilities. But it is enjoyble to speculate, as is "What If?"

Heard the taped version of WHAT IF?: THE WORLD'S FOREMOST
MILITARY HISTORIANS IMAGINE WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, edited
by Robert Cowley . . . I often speculate about lots of things, and so do the contributors to this book--including Stephen E. Ambrose, John Keegan, David McCollough, and James M. McPherson (to name just a few).

For example, what if:
George Washington had never made his miraculous escape
from the British on Long Island in the early dawn of August 29, 1776?

a Confederate aide hadn't accidentally lost General Robert E. Lee's plans for invading the North?

the Allied invasion on D Day had failed?

These and a whole host of other questions are considered . . . the resultant answers are often fun, but at the same time, sometimes frightening . . . as in, Hitler's case . . . had he not attacked Russia when he did, he might have moved into the Middle East and secured the oil supplies the Third Reich so badly needed, thus helping it retain its power in Europe . . . can you just imagine the present-day implications for that scenario?

If you're a history buff, this is a MUST read . . . but methinks
that others will enjoy it and become much more interested
in the subject as a result . . . I know that I'm now looking
forward to Coweley's follow-up effort, WHAT IF? 2.