Product Description
As legions of baby boomers approach retirement age, this important call to action outlines the steps to thriving as an older worker in a newly defined work world. Dispelling the stereotypes of aging that prevail in our culture, Helen Harkness champions a radical approach to aging and working for the new century. With inspiring stories of people who created their most satisfying careers at an age when others were being "put out to pasture," Harkness shatters the myth that growing older equals biological, mental, psychological, and creative decline and encourages us instead to reset our career clocks. Her book charts a clear course for rethinking our future and finding career fulfillment in later life, with exercises, self-assessments, and worksheets for each step along the way. Practical information shows readers how to find the order in the chaos of our Information Age, shake loose from old stereotypes to creatively integrate aging and working, tell time different!ly--functionally, not chronologically--and develop success criteria and the action steps needed to get there. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Creating a Mindset for Thriving in Senior Life
The Joy of Retirement: Finding Happiness, Freedom, and the Life You've Always Wanted

This book by Dr. Harkness is a little treasure, filled with wisdom insights for thriving in the senior years.It's filled with knowledge acquired from Helen's professional practice, from her research on the aging process and her own life experience as a senior.If you are in the 50 plus years this is one of those books you will want to keep handy as a reference for frequent review and reminders on ways to shape your thinking and living in the 50 plus years.There are so many tidbits of wisdom on pages to keep tabbed with your favorite quotes, such as, "The greatest threat to life and health in our midlife is having nothing to live for that matters to us." (page 31).In my work as a professional counselor and life coach I encourage my 50-plus clients to get the book, mark it up and keep it handy.

David C. Borchard, Ed.D
Career/executive Coach
www.VisionTrac.com

Find your true authentic self

I found out about Helen Harkness from a business colleague who has a graduate degree in business from Harvard University. He highly recommended her books and career counseling. Having taught in public schools for 5 years and then worked in commercial real estate for more than 20 years, I came to a place where I needed a change and a new challenge.I purchased this book and could not put it down! It helped me so much that I purchased her other books. I found all of them helpful.

If you are dissatisfied with your present career and looking for a career change, finding a career for the first time or retiring and wanting to start something new, this is the book for you. Helen helps you sort through and begin to see there are no obstacles (certainly not age)to becoming true to yourself in your work. Helen will help you get in touch with your "true authentic self" and help you see your natural gifts and interests in a way you may never have seen yourself before. Her research is timely and the information will give you insight for your future career. I applaud her work and highly recommend this book.

Don't stop your career clock -- rewind it with this book
While surfing the Internet, I discovered a site where for $2.00 you can purchase excerpts from books on their list.Because of my interest in anti-aging issues, I purchased three excerpts from a book titled Don't Stop the Career Clock: Rejecting the Myths of Aging for a New Way to Work in the 21st Century by Helen Harkness, Ph.D. I was so impressed by what I read in the excerpts that I immediately purchased the book.

If the excerpts were impressive, the book blew me away. I finally found someone who understands how to successfully manage the aging process.

Dr. Helen Harkness is well past retirement age but wisely refrains from revealing her chronological age. However, I can tell you that after meeting her at her office in Garland, TX, she functions as a dynamic, fifty-year old. She maintains an active professional schedule as president of Career Design Associates, Inc., which specializes in individual and organizational renewal through career and management training programs. She has been an English professor, department chair, director of adult education, acting dean of business development, and academic dean and provost at the University of Plano in the 1970s. When I last corresponded with her, she was off to Australia to deliver a keynote address.

Don't Stop the Career Clock is filled with meticulous research to support the author's thinking and beliefs about aging and working.There is something on every page worth highlighting. Particularly helpful for those vacillating between retirement and continuing to be productive in one capacity or another, is the chapter "Seven Steps for Resetting Your Career Clock." In this chapter, Dr. Harkness provides numerous exercises to help you think about what you are good at, and what you might really want to do with the rest of your life. The exercises aloneare worth ten times the cost of the book.

What I personally found most helpful is the chapter "Learning a New Way to Tell Time." In it, Dr. Harknesssays, ". . . because of our social and cultural expectations, we program ourselves to begin to fall apart at a certain designated age, and we oblige.". She then gives her "live long, die fast" contemporary model for aging which should give hope to anyone over age 65 who has bought into the myth that "it's too late for me".

If you are "middle aged" or older, this is a "must read" book. If you are younger, get a head start on designing a fabulous future for yourself. Don't Stop the Career Clock will show you how to do it.

Learn how to grow
This book is testimonial on how to grow in this day and age.My thanks on teaching me how to become a better person. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Timing of Biologicl Clocks
One of the problems in ordering on the web, is that you can't check out the problem before it arrives. This book is much more Physics and Math than I expected, with not much of the biological aspects that I needed. It is a good book in its own right, but not enough of the Biology that I expected.

Highly collectable
Here you will find the best available presentation, with
clear colorful diagrams, of everything about advancing and
delaying biological clocks. There are surprisingly simple
principles, though they are unexpected, being topologically
subtle. Plenty of examples are given in this and that species,
ending with the prediction that all the same will eventually
be found in Man. That actually happened a few years after this
1986 book circulated.There is a pretty good chapter on human
sleep/wake timing, too, some comments on jet-lag that should
help dispel rampant superstition on that subject, and some
chapters on biochemical and chemical oscillators.

None of it is outdated: it seems to be the last
word on these topics.But a big thing is missing. Nothing is
found here about the molecular genetics of the circadian clock.
That is because all that was discovered in the 1990s. For a timely
update see Chapter 19 in the same author's "Geometry of Biological
Time" published in 2001.

If you can get a copy of this out-of-print book (Scientific
American Library sold about 40,000 then went out of business)
it is well worth having just for the pictures in which the
principles of phase resetting are finally made clear, as done
nowhere else, in three-dimensional brilliant color codes. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Cutting a terrifying path from a Pennsylvania farm to the Europe of the 1930s, Banning Jainlight becomes the private pornographer of the world's most evil man. In a Vienna window, he glimpses the face of a lost erotic dream, and from there travels to the Twentieth Century's darkest corner to confront its shocked and secret conscience. One of Steve Erickson's most acclaimed novels, Tours of the Black Clock crosses the intersections of passion and power and gazes into a clock with no face, where memory is the gravity of time and all the numbers fall like rain. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Muddled
It's easy to write nonsense.This isn't literature.It is muddled nonsense.The beginning and ending is readable, but there is a large section, a little past halfway, that is pure torture, making no sense at all, that should have been edited out.I'd say it is a quarter of the book.

There are several impossible realities here.To put the brightest and most charitable light on this work of nonsense, it is an alternative history, where Hitler does not invade Russia, but rather invades and conquers England, and then attacks America.

I like alternative history. But that is only a departure point for this book.It is only 5 percent of this book.The other 95 percent is about various characters, Banning Jainlight, a number of women, one or more of them apparently the same as Geli Raubal, Hitler, and some others.

This book never should have been published.It isn't good enough.The author is an egomaniac to believe that his garbled nonsense is worth reading.

The best part of the book is when Banning discovers that his brothers have taken him to rape his own mother, and he kills one of the brothers.That's a bit of happiness in a very dark and muddled mass of nonsense that I can't even call a story.

Prose or fiction?
As a poet Steve Erickson was transformational for me. There are chapters in this book that compare, for me, to some of the greatest poetry ever written. This fact alone makes this book well worth reading, but the story itself merits a second glance as well. Reality is layered, overlapping, runs paralell, perpendicular, through time, through fantasy. There are few fiction writers brave enough to make so tangible and palpable their characters turmoil, being too anchored to what they feel is real. But writing fiction opens up possibilities that even fewer writers truly ever tap. Steve Erickson has done just that. And does it magnificently time and again. As magnificent as Arc d'X is I would have to call this book, Tours of the Black Clock, Erickson seminal work.

Lost on the Tour
Ocassionally confusing but full of profound ideas.The alternate, parallel history plays like a dream.A fully layered but ultimately flawed book, with breaths of the brilliance Erickson will display later.

Twilight trip to an alternative version of the 20th Century
Steve Erickson claims kinship with authors Philip K. Dick and Thomas Pynchon, and its easily to see why.Like those authors, he subtly twists the nature of reality and history until it resembles the inner (both philosophical and pyschological) landscapes of his characters.This novel is about white-haired Marc and his mother, who live on a small island in the middle of a fog-shrouded river in the Pacific Northwest.They have an estranged relationship with each other, stemming from the fact that Marc doesn't know who his father is, and his mother will not speak to him about her past.One day, he comes home and finds her with a dead man at her feet.The image so disturbs him that he will not set foot on the island for about 20 years.He takes over the ferry that shuttles tourists back and forth.He finally goes back to the hotel where his mother lives, in search of a mysterious girl who has not stepped back onto the return ferry to the mainland, and runs into his m! other.The ghost of the dead man is still at her feet, and he tells both mother and son of his strange history. Banning Jainlight was the bastard son of a farmer and his Native American slave mistress in the earlier part of the century.He ends up burning down the farm, killing one of his half-brothers, and crippling both his father and his step-mother for the cruelty they inflicted on him.He runs away to New York City, and several years later, ends up in Vienna, Austria, where he writes pornography for a powerful client in the newly ascendant Nazi Regime.He bases his writings on the strange, surreal sexual encounters he has with a young woman who lives across the street from him.In his writings, he transforms her features and her name to resemble those of the client's -- who is, of course, Hitler -- long lost love.Bear in mind, that this is just a brief description of this novel.Jainlight's story sparks off the no-less compelling story of Marc's mother, that mov! es from pre-Revolutionary Russia, sub-Saharan Africa, and P! ost-war New York City. Moving across dreams and reality, fantasy and history, this dense novel weaves together such unlikely themes as relationships between lovers and parents; the nature of good and evil; and the quest for identity.The images and instance in this novel are numerous and unforgettable:a woman who can kill men with the wild beauty of her dancing and menstruates flower petals; a city that's in the middle of a lagoon, and covered by blue tarps; a burial ceremony where the dead are hung upside-down on trees until they can speak their names; a herd of silver buffalo who run through the plains of Africa and North America. The writing is lovely and lyrical.This is a great novel! ... Read more

Product Description
Howard Pyle (1853-1911) was an American illustrator and writer, primarily of books for young audiences. In 1894 he began teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry, and after 1900 he founded his own school of art and illustration (later called the Brandywine School). His 1883 classic The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood remains in print to this day, and his other books, frequently with medieval European settings, include a four-volume set on King Arthur that cemented his reputation. He wrote an original work, Otto of the Silver Hand, in 1888. He also illustrated historical and adventure stories for periodicals such as Harper's Weekly and St. Nicholas Magazine. Pyle wrote and illustrated a number of books himself. He compiled a number of pirate legends into his volume, Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (1921). His other works include: Pepper and Salt; or, Seasoning for Young Folk (1886), Men of Iron (1892), Twilight Land (1895), The Story of the Champions of the Round Table (1905), Stolen Treasure (1907) and The Ruby of Kishmoor (1908). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

A Touch of Fairy Dust
The Wonder Clock is one of my favorite books of all time. I am now 76, but I read it (and it was read to me) throughout my childhood. Its stories had morals, but they were subtle; your nose was not rubbed in it. The language is stimulating, because it`s slightly archaic, not slangy. Some of the stories are dramatic and some are very funny. (Some would be scary to 3-4 year olds.)

In subsequent years in my professional life, I came to realize that these stories are about peasantry--its moral sense, its lack of productivity, its class structure. In fact, when I was in graduate school, I was detailed to assist another grad studentfrom Central Europe in writing his dissertation. He was himself a peasant and wanted to explain to Americans what peasantry was all about. His English was excellent, but his writing skills were meager. If I had never read The Wonder Clock, I could have made nothing out of it.

I suppose the point is that Wonder Clock can be enjoyed at many levels. Kids love the fanciful stories that are a little more tart than Mother Goose. And the parent can get a lot out of them, too. I have read this book to my grand children and they loved it.

Not a Living Math Book
I bought this book from the recommendation of Livingmath.net's booklists. We love fairy tales, and this book was supposed to tie into a time theme for math studies. Unfortunately, this book has nothing at all to do with time. It's merely a book of fairy tales.

The book is introduced with an story about a "wonder clock." Each chapter is preceded by a portion of a poem that goes through the 24 hours of the day. But the stories themselves have no connection to that particular time or any time at all. They are fairy tales, plain and simple. There is no math in this book. This is not a living math book. A living book, yes, but not a math book.

Some of the stories are better than others. At the end of about a fourth of the stories, my daughter will look at me and say, "THAT was weird!" Yes, in fairy tales, you have to suspend disbelief. But talking sausages, a fox who marries and then later eats his goose wife, and a rabbit who begs a prince to chop of its head to break a spell all seemed too far-fetched even for fairy tales. On the positive side we've enjoyed some of the unique vocabulary and expressions as well as the wonderful illustrations. So it's not a total loss.

remarkable nineteenth century children's fables
The narrator of the twenty-four stories (plus an introduction) finds a special clock in Father Time's attic, which strikes on the hour with songs and puppet dances."Four and twenty marvelous tales, one for each hour of the day" all start with a verse to coincide with that particular hour.Drawings are included to add further depth.Each ends with a morality lesson, which never interferes with the story, but helps wrap up that entry.

This nineteenth century collection is remarkable in different ways depending on the reader.The tales provide insight into daily household life and the morality of a bygone era.The contributions also furbish delightful fairy tales for the young at heart that are enhanced by superb figures of speech and tremendous illustrations with a finale moral lesson.This collection is a winner and will send many a reader searching for other works by Howard Pyle.

Harriet Klausner

A masterpiece of storytelling and illustration:
This book has been in my family for four generations, the 1912 edition having been given to my father by his grandmother in 1948.

The premise of the story is given in the introduction; the narrator happens upon a marvelous clock in Father Time's attic, which strikes the hour with songs and puppet dances. Twenty-four stories follow, one for each hour of the day. Each story begins with a verse that corresponds to the hour of the day: lighting the fire, preparing breakfast, sending the children to school, making the noonday meal, milking, tea, bedtime. The verses alone are fascinating, as they bring to life the househould routines of a very different era.

The stories are illustrated with Howard Pyle's remarkable drawings. Each tale has a frontispiece for the title, and the beginning of the text and each picture caption is heralded with a large ornmental letter like those in illuminated manuscripts. The illustrations are gorgeous. Pyle was fond of capturing scenes of nobility and royal splendour, pastoral life, and witchcraft. Some are stylized portraits of princesses in exquisite gowns and classic poses, while others demonstrate Pyle's gift for caricature and expression.

The stories themselves are wonderful, full of heroes and heroines, bravery, beauty, wits and trickery. Although there are allusions to mystic and Christian themes, and to folklore and fables, most of the stories will be unfamiliar and fresh to modern readers. The langauge is rich with metaphor, droll imagery, and dialogue that is made to be read aloud. As with Aesop's fables, the stories are meant to instruct, but the morals take a back seat to the storytelling, at least until the conclusion of each tale, and a great deal is left up to the reader to interpret.

This was my favorite book as a child, and I still turn to it on sleepless nights. But our beloved family heirloom is growing very delicate, so I am very glad that the book is still in print. I hope to share it with my own children someday.

A four generation read aloud treat
My father heard these stories as a child.He read them to me. I read them to my kids and my grandkids.The vocabulary, the cadences, the variedplots and the sheer magic of these tales is timeless.The poems at thebeginning of each chapter are related to the hours.Kids insist that youread them too.Pyle always sees to it that bullies, evil magicians,cheaters and older nasty siblings get their comeuppance.Little ones enjoythat aspect.Great archaic words are dusted off along with long disusedsimilies and metaphores.It's the kind of book that comes to mind when youmeet a bright eyed new child who has read everything else or seeneverything else.At age 70 I still keep a copy in my bed's head board. Rap, tap, tap he knocked at the door. ... Read more

Product Description

It's fun to tell time as you dance around the clock!

Put on your dancing shoes and get ready to boogie! It's American Batstand - a twelve-hour rock and roll extravaganza with Click Dark as your host. Decked in go-go boots and bobby sox, the buoyant bats bebop their way around the clock. And there's a special guest appearance at the end!

With their swinging text and groovy illustrations, the creators of Bat Jamboree and Bats on Parade don't miss a beat when it comes to the basics. Telling time has never been so much fun!

Customer Reviews (2)

Wonderful for Bat Fans
While not exactly a "learn to tell time book", this adorable book teaches clock/time recognition along with bat acceptance. Excellent art and rhyme make it a must for bat fans of all ages.

Boogie oogie oogie
All night long the bats get down on American Batstand and at each hour the bats take up a different dance as Click Dark, their host, introduces a new tune. Children will love the sotry and feel absolutely brilliant once they've discovered that they can use this story to learn to tell time orhelp reinforce what they already know all on their own. ... Read more

Product Description

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, the collapsed cores of once massive stars that ended their lives as supernova explosions. Pulsar rotation rates can reach incredible speeds, up to hundreds of times per second. The story of how an object ‘spins up’ to a significant fraction of the speed of light is fascinating and involves collapsing stellar cores following supernova explosions, while the faster ones result from stellar cannibalism.

In this book, Geoff McNamara explores the history, subsequent discovery and contemporary research into pulsar astronomy. The story of pulsars is brought right up to date with the announcement in 2006 of a new breed of pulsar, Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs), which emit short bursts of radio signals separated by long pauses. These may outnumber conventional radio pulsars by a ratio of four to one. Geoff McNamara ends by pointing out that, despite the enormous success of pulsar research in the second half of the twentieth century, the real discoveries are yet to be made including, perhaps, the detection of the hypothetical pulsar black hole binary system by the proposed Square Kilometre Array - the largest single radio telescope in the world.

Customer Reviews (1)

Good Entry Level Science
This is a good book for those who have an interest in this particular stellar pathology also if you enjoy the type of writer who informs via the anecdote you will again find this an entertaining way to learn. He for example explains through the words of Ms Jocelyn Bell her perspective on not being included in the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the pulsar and from my own point of veiw I was interested to learn of the radio interferometry experiments carried out here in post war Sydney. The book begins with the life cycles of stars that eventually become the subject of this book and then leads in to the link between the subatomic and the nature of the neuton star. I felt this section was a little confused but encourage the prospective reader to 'read on'. A few of the diagrams are misplaced and in one case i can recall, insufficient in regard to explanations. Closing chapters explore the subclasses of the Pulsar as well as the system PSR 1913+16 which became famous through it being a test bed for General Relativity and the subject of another book by McNamara, gravitational waves.
This book I hope will inspire readers to look further into the types and classifications of stars as well as the interesting behaviour that they exhibit.
McNamara's book is thouroughly researched and therefore a reliable book, which is not always the case with popular science. ... Read more

Product Description
Why many of us will live past 100--and enjoy our extrayears. In Stopping the Clock, two pioneers of anti-agingmedicine show how we can start now to regain energy and vitality, haltor reverse damage to our bodies, and avoid the diseases--heart attack,arthritis, cancer, diabetes--that do most to reduce current lifeexpectancy.

In sixteen fully-documented, information-packedchapters, Klatz and Goldman detail an up-to-the-minute longevityprogram, including:

The key anti-aging hormones: Melatonin, DHEA,and human growth hormone, how to take them and precautions touse.
The sex hormones: the role of estrogen and progesteronesupplementation, including natural alternatives to prescriptionhormones--plus new research on testosterone supplementation for menand women.
The role of the "miracle minerals"--chromium,selenium and magnesium--and the latest information on the keyanti-oxidant vitamins and how to take them.
A thyroid supportprogram to avoid the many dangerous effects of thyroiddeficiency.
A sensible approach to anti-aging exercise--plus 25ways to defeat the aging effects of stress.
The life-longdiet--including the top 25 healing foods.
A longevity test todetermine your current estimated lifespan.
Personal longevityprograms--including daily supplement regiments--from 28 leaders ofanti-aging medicine.
Glossary of 75 anti-aging substancesavailable at health-food stores. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great information
I haven't read the whole book - but it is very informative so far and offers the reader great ideas on staying healthy.This book is for all age groups.

Plenty of research, reviews and examples but lacking true knowledge!
This book focuses on anti-aging more from a scientific and external viewpoint as opposed to a more spiritual and internal outlook. To achieve immortality, one needs a holistic approach, with focus primarily on the spiritual thereby having the opportunity to study, experience and learn from all possible areas since all of life is interconnected.

The authors discuss 4 main theories of aging - the wear and tear theory, the neuroendocrine theory, the genetic control theory and the free radical theory, while making mention of various other theories as well. The middle part of the book focuses on various drugs & supplements like melatonin, DHEA, hGH, thyroid, estrogen and progesterone, testosterone, minerals like chromium, selenium and magnesium, and anti-oxidants like vitamin C, E & A, beta-carotene and CoQ-10. They discuss their effects on the body, various studies performed, and how it effects aging. They also discuss exercises, a long-life diet and how the mind is the most important factor in aging - including information on meditation, relaxation, breath control, massage and control of thinking. They finish the book with a longevity test, and focus on various individuals over the age of 60, their lifestyles and the extra-ordinary feats they performed. This book with regards to nutrition and mind-over-matter is slowly but surely proving that science is only validating the ancients. Finally this book is missing one of the most important ingredients in longevity - fasting!

Books I would recommend to actually achieve immortality are Linda Goodman's Star Signs and the list of books in the appendix, (she actually instructs on immortality) Game of Life and How to Play It, Secrets of the Soil, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, books by Dr Paul Brunton, books by Vera Stanley Alder, Your Body's Many Cries for Water, Alkalize or Die, the Secret Teachings of all Ages (numerous immortals listed), Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class,and finally books by Steve Meyerowitz.

EXCELLENT LONGEVITY HANDBOOK
The science of longevity & anti-ageing medicine are making such rapid strides that this book, published in 1996, might not be on the cutting edge as far as the latest nutrient research is concerned. However it still deserves 5 stars for its in-depth treatment of all the major issues and nutrient discoveries up to 1996 and for its readable style.

Klatz and Goldman deal with theories of aging, the natural hormones (melatonin, DHEA, hGH etc.), the miracle minerals and vital anti-oxidants, exercise, nutrition and how to handle stress. It's important to note that an anti-aging lifestyle is not only designed to extend one's life, but also to ensure a healthy, happy and quality existence at any age.

The chapter on the pioneers of anti-aging medicine and their personal secrets of longevity are particularly interesting and informative. The exercise section is very well illustrated and there are a couple of other graphs and figures to illumine the text.

The book contains a glossary, appendices on anti-aging specialists, institutes, research and educational organizations, an extensive bibliography and a thorough index.

I would also like to recommend "The Superhormone Promise" by William Regelson and "Renewal" by Timothy J. Smith. These three books together will make you an anti-aging expert. Just remember to apply this good advice!

Good information
After hearing friends and associates getting more energy and also sexualresurection from HGH / DHEA, I read this book andfound out you do not have to age at a pre-determinedrate.This book gives you the knowledgeto make a choice. OK! I'll give ita try.

Use it or Lose it!
I read "Grow Young with HGH" along with "Stopping the Clock". Stopping the Clock gives you theinformation about HGH and its other ant-aging associates which can make it synergistic. I reviewedthe different HGH products out there and came up with what I thought wasthe best HGH product on the line and I was NOT dissapointed!I lost fatand gained muscle along with better concentration and energy. Thank you Dr.Klatz for the information! ... Read more

Product Description

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of RealAge^® and coauthor of You: The Owner's Manual shows you how to cook your way to a younger you.

Customer Reviews (40)

Good recipes, easy to follow
The recipes are easy to follow and to make, and taste great. They certainly are healthy, but can't say if they help reduce your 'real age' any.

Real Age Cookbook
Not the healthy recipes I was looking for.Dr. Gott's No Flour No Sugar recipe book is great though!

Get excited about cooking again!
I actually got this book from the library in order to check it out (no pun intended!) before purchasing. I was sceptical about a cookbook written by doctors. I've purchased books like this in the past and found maybe three or four recipes that I would repeat regularly. Also there are so many great recipes online these days, it almost seems silly to purchase another cookbook....but this book has so many recipes I love that are simple, delicious, and in the 300-400 calorie per serving range (so I don't have to figure that out!)The recipes are clear and easy to follow and definitely of gourmet value - I'd eat at Dr. Roizen's anytime!!! And check him out - he is 64 and looks great! I'm ordering the book today, before I totally destroy the library copy...Easy, Simple, Delicious, Healthy, and Calorie Conscious Meals!

Cooking the RealAge Way:Turn back your biological clock with more than 80 delicious and easy recipes
Absolutely loved this book.I would highly recommend it to anyone trying to live a healthy lifestyle.

real age cookbook
I have tried some of the recipes in this book and were good, but most of the recipes are not something I would fix on a daily basis because of time and lack of every day ingredients. This cookbook is for the serious dieters that have more time than I do. ... Read more

Product Description
The Boxcar Children are spending a weekend at Goldwin University for Grandfather's college reunion. They are immediately fascinated by the tall, mysterious clock tower that overshadows the campus. Does it hold the key to a secret from the past? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A very good book
This was a very good book. You just don't want to put it down because its so good. It scary too. I couldn't put it down when I read it.

Boxcar Children do it again...
The Boxcar Children, Jessie, Henry, Violet, and Benny, visit grandfather Alden's old college. But another mystery awaits them. Is the old clock tower in the middle to the college haunted? Someone is seeking an old treasure and it's up to the Boxcar Children to find out who! ... Read more

Product Description
Contains instructions, based on authentic plans, for making reproduction antique wooden clock cases. This guide presents the reader with exploded drawings and tips from experts, together with information on techniques, materials, design, conservation and many types of repair. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Perfect for the Antique clock enthusiast and restorer
I found this book to be filled with valuable lost arts in restoring and preserving antique clocks. The author does not really give any exacting clock plans but gives you many helpful tips and basic woodworking techniques for making authentic antique clocks. You will not find any tacky quartz battery junk here as you do in most other misleading titles.

Satisfaction
I needed to access the information contained in the above book. I found the contents satisified my requirments. I am very grateful to Amazon for the way they quickly organised the supply to my adress. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (13)

GITMO indicted
Clive Stafford Smith's "Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side" is one of the most readable of the spate of books about GITMO.Smith's droll gallows humor is perhaps not exactly funny, but given the situation he describes, the choices are to laugh or cry.

In the first chapter, Stafford Smith takes us with him on an average trip to Guantanamo, describing the transportation to the base, the accommodations, the process for seeing detainees and the general setting.He notes ironies such as it's a $10,000 fine to hit an iguana, but detainees can be hit with impunity.Soldiers are required to salute and say "Honor bound".The correct response is "to defend freedom".One attorney responds with "to defend the Constitution".Stafford Smith suggests that the base could do with a change of motto.

The second chapter is entitled "Ticking Bomb" and it explores the justifications for torture and other harsh treatment.Stafford Smith interviews a handful of torture proponents, whose main justification is the proverbial "ticking time bomb" scenario.In particular, he excoriates Alan Dershowitz for providing a liberal justification for torture with his idea for "torture warrants".

The following chapter explores a real life "ticking time bomb" scenario.Jose Padilla was apprehended in connection with an imminent "dirty bomb plot" in which he was allegedly going to explode a suitcase full of radioactive ("dirty") material."Benjamin Mohammed" (real name Binyam Mohamed) was allegedly his accomplice.There was only one problem:there was no "dirty bomb plot" and, hence, there was no "ticking time bomb".Nevertheless, Binyam was captured, rendered to Morocco where he underwent eighteen months of torture, then shipped on to Guantanamo.Stafford Smith presents his story in detail to show the absurdity of justifying torture when we can't possible know that the accused is even involved in any terrorist plot, let alone a "ticking time bomb" scenario.

Next, Stafford Smith details Binyam's military commission, or, as Binyam calls it, his "con-mission".Stafford Smith highlights the near impossibility of representing detainees at GITMO because of ethical dilemmas, changing rules, and nearly impossible procedures for obtaining records, bringing witnesses, taking and reviewing notes and even finding out the specific charges against one's client.Fortunately, Binyam chose to act as his own counsel and, while not a legal professional, was more than skilled enough to expose the sham that the military commission system is.This chapter would make great theatre - it would be a comedy if only men's lives and freedom weren't at stake.Unfortunately, no verdict was ever rendered, as the proceedings were halted before completion.

Stafford Smith then turns his attention to the "disease" of lying that infects GITMO.In example after example he details how he himself is consistently lied to, as well as how the U.S. military consistently lies to the U.S. public, whether through omission, little white lies, or outright falsehood.The U.S. government tells us that GITMO is the most transparent prison operation in the world, yet the prisoners were held there completely incommunicado for three years before even being allow representation, and even to this day access to the prison, whether by lawyers, journalists or even Red Cross workers, is still severely limited and subject to innumerable and usually arbitrary rules.Secrecy is the polar opposite of the open, transparent government that democratic society is founded on.As such, it is the foundation of the abuses that have been allowed to perpetuate at GITMO and other "black sites".

Stafford Smith then details some of the reality behind the "bad men" who populate GITMO.Most of the information in this chapter can be found - in much greater detail - in other sources, but it is still worthwhile to review it.Stafford Smith also uses his own specific knowledge of some of his clients to demonstrate the absurdities of some of the government's claims against them.For instance, one client, "The General", was accused of being a high-level al Qaeda commander, but Stafford Smith was able to prove that he was working in London the whole time.

Following a short chapter on the U.S. government's contempt for and its attempt to undermine news agency al Jazeera, Stafford Smith devotes an extended chapter to "Asymmetrical Warfare" - the hunger strikes and suicide attempts that the detainees used to try to cope (or not) with the conditions of their indefinite detention and to gain world-wide sympathy.This chapter is not for the faint-hearted as it presents in gory detail the hunger strikes and the military's response and treatment of hunger strikers.

Finally, Stafford Smith moves beyond GITMO to discuss the "archipelago" of black sites on assorted islands and other remote areas, as well as the U.S. government's attempt to remove any court or other jurisdiction, oversight or accountability to the American people from these sites.

It would be impossible to argue that Stafford Smith is not "biased" - certainly he is.His work with death row prisoners led him to volunteer to be among the first to represent men accused of being the "worst of the worst".He clearly sympathizes with the prisoners and he believes their stories of abuse and torture.Nonetheless, he is not simply some credulous naïf.He notes the bruises and other injuries and compares them to the story he is told.He often presents his clients' stories simply as their stories while reserving his own judgment.When possible, he makes efforts to verify his clients' stories by traveling to their home countries or other places to see the situation for himself and talk to other people.He even obtained Saudi Arabian birth records proving that one of his clients was a juvenile whom the U.S. failed to recognize as such.

Stafford Smith's book is a difficult read for anyone who loves America and wants to believe the best about it, but those are precisely the people who most need to read it.There is growing evidence - including testimony from soldiers themselves - that torture and abuse were not and are not isolated incidents perpetrated by a "few bad apples".When a nation of laws violates its own laws to deny even basic rights to its "enemies", abuse is the natural and inevitable result.If we can not retreat from the road we have started down - and soon - then the terrorists will have won because we will have sold out our highest ideals - that which makes America what it is.

read this book!
This book is about the prisoners at Guantanamo Mr. Smith represented, and by extension many more whose stories touched those of his clients. The picture that emerges from the book is the appalling violations of basic justice, international law and our own constitution pepetrated by the Bush administration. Many people said 9/11 would change us. Well it did but what has happened was never a direct result of those attacks, but rather the Bush White House's reaction. So the innocent citizens of Afghanistan endured U.S. bombing for almost ten years and no end in sight. And along with the bombs came the arrests and detentions and secret prisons. Unknown thousands of people arrested, hooded, cuffed, jailed, and tortured without charges.
Mr. Smith is a Briton, and along with his countryman Andy Worthigton, has done more than anyone to bring this wretched story- these stories- to the light of day. The stories Smith tells here are about people who were living as free innocent citizens one day, and the next found themselves disappeared, unable to communicate with their families, to know why they had been jailed, to know why they were being tortured, when if ever they would be released or at least brought to trial.
This book will- as it should- make you good and angry at such outrageous violations of everything about justice we thought our country believed in. Maybe even get you to try to do something to change it. But it will also inspire respect and admiration for the people who endured all this, and survived. People like Sami al-Hajj, the al-Jazeera reporter who not only endured unimaginable suffering in our prisons, but managed to be a source of strength and support for other prisoners, and kept a careful log of the many child prisoners at Gitmo (Sami counted more than 35). Or Binyam Mohamed, just for enduring what he did and emerging as an advocate for all the other prisoners still being held.
Finally, I must mention Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, an African American military lawyer who worked tirelessly to free Mr. Mohamed. She was acting against her military colleagues out of a true passion for real justice.

read this
This is a great book from start to finish.It is a hard hitting truth about the outragous behaviour that has meant people have been tortured by "civilized" coutries that should know better.You should read this book no matter how you feel about the subject.

Compelling evidence of the "War on Terror's" complete failure
The author, Clive Stafford Smith, draws on his experience as lawyer for over 50 Guatánamo prisoners to offer a damning account of the Bush and Blair governments' outrageous treatment of detainees. Along the way, Smith utterly debunks the "ticking time bomb" myth as a justification for resorting to torture under extreme circumstances. And his first-hand account of detainee Binyam Mohammed's brilliant self-defense, before a military commission, will convince even the most skeptical that justice has truly run amok at Guantánamo. By contrast with corporate media coverage of US treatment of detainees during the Bush-Cheney "global war on terror," Smith reminds his readers that Gitmo is only the most publicized of sites where the US, and its allies, continue to hold detainees. This is an important book and I recommend it without qualification.

Gitmo must go!
Well written account by a death penalty defense lawyer of his experiences trying to defend Gitmo detainees. His descriptions of the place and its history and current occupants both the willing and the prisoners is quite moving and informative. One of his clients was released fron Gitmo while I was reading the book. The writer is one courageous fellow and deserves our thanks for his preserverance. ... Read more

Product Description
Widely acclaimed for his groundbreaking crime novels Booked to Die and The Bookman's Wake, award-winning author John Dunning triumphantly returns with a riveting new thriller that takes us back to the summer of 1942, when radio was in its prime, when daylight saving time gave way to "wartime," when stations like WHAR on the New Jersey coast struggled to create programming that entertained and inspired a nation in its dark hour.

Into this intense community of radio artists and technicians in Regina Beach, New Jersey, come Jack Dulaney and Holly Carnahan. They are determined to find Holly's missing father, whose last desperate word came from this noisy seaside town. Holly sings like an angel and has what it takes to become a star. Jack -- a racetrack hot-walker and novelist who's hit every kind of trouble in his travels from sea to sea -- tries out as a writer at WHAR and soon discovers a passion for radio and a natural talent for script writing.

While absorbing the ways of radio, from writing to directing, he meets some extraordinarily brave and gifted people who touch his life in ways he could not have imagined -- actresses Rue, Pauline, and Hazel; actor-director Waldo, creator of the magnificent black show Freedom Road; and enigmatic station owner Loren Harford, among others.

Jack's zeal for radio is exceeded only by his devotion to Holly, who needs his help but who is terrified for his safety. Strange things are happening in Regina Beach, starting with an English actor who walked out of the station six years ago and was never seen again. And Holly's father is gone too, in equally puzzling circumstances. As Jack and Holly penetrate deeper into the shadows of the past, they learn that someone will do anything, including murder, to hide some devastating truths.

In a stunning novel that transcends genre, John Dunning calls upon his vast knowledge of radio and his incisive reading of history to create a poignant, page-turning work of fiction that sheds new insights on some of the most harrowing events of the twentieth century. Like E. L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate or Caleb Carr's The Alienist, Dunning's brilliant tale of mystery, murder, and revenge brings to life another time, another place, another world.Amazon.com Review
John Dunning's previous novels featuring a sleuth who's an expert in rare and collectible books won this former bookstore owner a devoted following; first editions of Booked to Die and The Bookman's Wake routinely fetch high sums in stores like the one Dunning himself owned for many years. With the verisimilitude that's a hallmark of his writing, Dunning delves into a new topic, the golden days of radio, igniting the reader's excitement about the enormous potential of the medium. Sadly, he can't assuage the inevitable disappointment over how that potential was wasted:

"Radio is the greatest invention of the past four centuries. It ranks right up there with Gutenberg's movable type as an earthshaking force.... One of the first things Gutenberg did with his movable type was print a magnificent Bible. The first thing radio did was argue how much selling would be permitted and how ridiculous it would be allowed to get. If it keeps on the way it's going there won't be anything worth listening to.... I have this almost morbid fear of the future--not that radio's greatest days will fade away but that its greatest day will never come. Fifty years from now it could just be a medium of hucksters and fools, a whorehouse in the sky."

Carnahan's search for her missing father involves Dulaney in a mystery rooted in the long-ago Boer War that has grown into a conspiracy peopled by German saboteurs, Irish nationalists, and African freedom fighters. The plotting is dense and the cast of minor characters merely sketched, but Dulaney's creative process is artfully drawn and the ambience of America in wartime isskillfully portrayed. --Jane Adams ... Read more

Customer Reviews (44)

I've read it several times
This book captures the feel of the WWII home front better than anything I've ever read. The plot at the end is just a bit complex, nonetheless, it's like going back in time. A wonderful book I wish I could find more like it.

Not the bookman series
good book and well written but not as good as the bookman series in my opinion

The Worst of Several Genres
I love mysteries set in WW II and like old time radio so I couldn't wait to begin this one. The "hero" is a junior varsity Tom Joad but,OK, I was game.The cast of characters that seemed to number in the low 80s and be interchangable "baddies" and "goodies".They were hard to keep track of without a scorecard but there is no quit in this reader and I pushed on. Then when we got to the Jersey shore, I found out that in 1942 with America fighting for it's life against fascism, and losing, our hero knew why.All the servicemen were bullies (A drafted station employee) or morons (the Coast Guard beach patrol).The 4F "hero" was the real McCoy however.Although not actually mentioned I bet he wished that dratted ear injury hadn't kept him from joining the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.He was moderate enought to think Marxism had some problems; the murder of 10s of millions of Ukrainians and the Nazi-USSR Pact probably and I say probably, didn't elude our observant literary genius.He was also a 1975 era feminist; all those plucky WW II women throwing off the handcuffs chaining them naked to the kitchen sink had his unhesitating support.Most big businessmen, probably wearing spats and silk high hats, were the bad guys needless to say.I wondered how someone could write such a truly awful book.I couldn't finish it and it's a point of honor for me to finish all books.Then in the bio it all became clear.The author was a flack for former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder of Colorado.I'm still haunted by her rictus grin and constipated, Quaker schoolmarm expression that said "somebody, somewhere is having fun and I want it to stop now!!!"Anyone who could stand to work for Pat could write this book with ease.

Interesting History - Somewhat Contrived Mystery
Any lover of old-time radio can find plenty to enjoy in Two O'Clock, as the story reeks of period detail and interesting geeky background of the era.Still, unlike Dunning's Bookman series, I had trouble with the verisimilitude in this story, which had to work hard to maintain the connection to the stories of the radio people and still keep the mystery alive.

Nonetheless, recommended.

Good period piece -- captures live radio drama beautifully.
Dunning's book holds it's own on 2 levels:as a period mystery and as a reminiscence of live radio drama of the 40's.Younger audiences may find it dated, but as someone born at the tail end of World War II, I liked the way it captured the feel of that time.One aspect rarely covered in books or TV is the German Bund activity in the U.S.I had several of those "Gee, I never thought of that" moments while reading this.

As an old radio broadcaster I was delighted at how Dunning captured the excitement, thrill, and fulfillment of live radio.Most stations are now pre-programmed, automated, and are as predictable as an iPod, but back then everything was live and neither the actors nor the audience knew exactly what was going to happen.Because of that, we were all participants, and that made the experience special.Dunning is an old broadaster so he knows what he's talking about, but getting it on paper for all to to experience is the true joy of this book.It's an enjoyable read. ... Read more

Product Description
A triumph of interdisciplinary scholarship" (Publishers Weekly)-Time's Pendulum is a lively, fascinating history of 4,000 years of timekeeping. A perfect balance of science, history, and sociology, Time's Pendulum traces the important developments in humankind's epic quest to measure the hours, days, and years with accuracy, and how our concept of time has changed with each new technological breakthrough.Written in an easy-to-follow chronological format and illustrated with entertaining anecdotes, author Jo Ellen Barnett's history of timekeeping covers everything from the earliest sundials and water clocks, to the pendulum and the more recent advances of battery-powered, quartz-regulated wrist watches and the powerful radioactive "clock," which loses only a few billionths of a second per day, making it nearly ten billion times more accurate than the pendulum clock. A tour of the discoveries and the inventors who endeavored to chart and understand time, Time's Pendulum also explains how each new advance gradually transformed our perception of the world.Amazon.com Review
Likely you've heard that the mechanical clock is one of humanity's most significant inventions, comparable to the printing press, or electricity, or the automobile. But first-time author Jo Ellen Barnett admits that most of us, if we're honest, don't quite see why. Our perception of time, and our artificial division of it into little, repeatable pieces, is so ingrained in us that we forget it's an invention.

Barnett, who admits to having been fascinated by time all her life, seems the perfect person to clear up this conceptual blind spot. Drawing from many disciplines, she's conducted a sweeping survey of our relationship with time, from our earliest attempts to measure and understand it to our more recent breakthroughs with carbon dating and atomic clocks. Time's Pendulum never skimps on the science, with its detailed explanations and unapologetic technical discussions. But what makes the book so very likable (and readable) is Barnett's passion for meditating on time's cultural and even spiritual mysteries. If you're already intrigued by time, Time's Pendulum makes for a satisfying, meaty read, rich in insights and historical anecdotes; if you aren't already intrigued, you will be. --Paul Hughes ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

could read it again and again
Fantastically researched and written.Highly, highly recommended, but be warned - you will want to read it twice!

Good overview
I've already had some interest in the topic, but wanted to pickup another book and see what else I could learn, so got this one based on the reviews.A very good book, would highly recommend for someone who wants to learn about the history of keeping time.

Two books in one, both interesting!
Jo Ellen Barnett has written two books here, hidden between one set of covers. The first part goes over the history of how we have measured (and, truly, how we have defined) the time of day, starting with the "temporary hours" of a sundial (longer in summer, shorter in winter, and not even counted during the night), and transitioning to equal (but still based on the sun) hours (local apparent time), then to local mean time, to standard (time-zone) time, and ending up with the current Coordinated Universal Time, based on atomic phenomena. The story is absorbing and well written, and would be an enjoyable book all by itself.

Then she has a second part, concerned with the way we have determined the age of the earth. This could be said to start with the speculations of the Babylonians and Greeks, but really took off in earnest with medievals' attempts to build everything on a Biblical basis, reading into the Biblical account whatever they needed to build their chronology. When the geologists tried to account for their own observations, however, it was clear that the few thousand years the Bible literalists derived for the age of the earth was far too small, but physicists like Lord Kelvin (while arriving at a longer time than the Bible provided) still reached an age of the earth too brief to mesh with the geological evidence. Only with the discovery of radioasctivity and the refinement of the techniques of deriving chronological data from radioactivity measurements could the physicists and geologists be reconciled.

Both parts make it clear that ultimately time has become defined in terms of atomic phenomena (though different parts of the atom) and only through our measurement of these can accuracy be attained (whether in the case of the time of day or the time the earth has taken to evolve since its origin).

Unlike some other two-part books I have reviewed, this one puts them both together successfully. It is a very interesting book.

If I could keep time in a bottle....
How many times a day do we unconsciously look at our watches, or the clock on the stove or the VCR (provided it's not permanently blinking 12:00)? Yet for many years, the capture of time to a clock was at best around the right hour of the day. Bernett takes us through the refinement of clock technology and clock making, and how this more exact time changed our lives, some would argue with the idea of a change for the better. She takes us on a simple and entertaining sweep of time from sundials to measuring the beats of an atom in order to tell what time it really is. Along the way there are arguments about the prime meridian and time zones as we are forced to go from telling time by the sun above each of us, to entire time zones on a single time, irregardless of where the sun exactly is. At least the trains could run on time.

Then Barnett pulls back and looks at the greatest clock around - the planet Earth itself. The question of how old the Earth is was a question that kept pushing the answer back and back further in time. Of course the Earth was only 6,000 years old, according to biblical interpreters. That is until the strata and fossils began to be understood, and then half life of radioactive elements could fix time ever more exactly. Now that we are able to "read" a good part of the clock that is the Earth, our placement of ourselves in time has also settled. So now we have a concept of where we are in time, and how to find it. At least until the earth slows some more due to friction in the tides.An interesting book that doesn't delve too deep and pulls you along on an interesting, everyday subject.

An interesting book
Time's Pendulum is a book not only about time and how time is measured, but also about our perception of time -- from the moment we as a species started worrying about it right up to today. Barnett does not only discuss clocks and how clocks work but the importance of time in daily life. Also excellent is her discussion of 'deep time' -- thinking about time on astronomical scales. I was also pleased by the more subtle connections. For example, the influence of the railroads on not only synchronizing watches over extending longitutes (i.e., time zones), but also their contribution to geologic time through uncovering the fossiliferous rocks during their construction. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
A practical guide which contains a wealth of information and professional advice on the working and maintenance of striking and chiming clocks. The author concentrates on the medium-priced and inexpensive pieces which are most likely to appear for repair. ... Read more

Product Description
The beauty of carriage clocks and their accompanying cases is an integral part of their design, but one aspect-their intricate movements-also displays solutions to mechanical problems that only the genius designer could solve. In this major new work by an expert clock historian and restorer, the reader will find over 400 exquisite color and 285 black-and-white photographs of hundreds of traveling clocks, as well as the explanations of all the major designers' work from the 17th century forward. Special chapters present the work of noted clockmakers Breguet, Garnier, Vulliamy, Cole, Frodsham, McCabe, Dent, white and more. Swiss, Austrian, French, English, and a few American traveling clocks are included. Since these clocks were technically advanced, scientific instruments of their day, they first were made for royal and wealthy patrons with the finest gilt, porcelain enamel, and jeweled materials. The book displays these fantastically beautiful works of art-miniature clocks as well as full-size ones-and more common popular styles available today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Carriage Clocks and their history
While this book is a great reference for carriage clocks, it also give any reader some insight about how the industrial beginnings in Europe. These fine and delicate timekeeping instruments are well described and well illustrated. Anyone seeking knowledge about these fine clocks will have the best written reference on the subject. This book dates back to the seventies, yet the information always remains fresh and has yet to be challenged. It has become a collectors item in itself. Highly recommended.

carriage clocks
I found it to be a good picture reference: Many of the clocks are shown in colour and all the styles are well represented.

The book serves it's intended purpose well; a good introduction to the carriage clock - perfect for the coffee table.

The photography is wonderful. ... Read more

Product Description
The first collection in a two-volume set celebrating American crime fiction contains classic novels of the 1930s and 1940s, including The Postman Always Rings Twice, Thieves Like Us, Nightmare Alley, The Big Clock, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and I Married a Dead Man. "Amazon.com Review
Literature and film buffs will be delighted by this collectionof pulp novels, most of which were made into important films. JamesM. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice is a literarymasterpiece with its spare prose invoking a savage, sexy, desperateworld. It inspired no less than three great movies: Luchino Visconti'sclassic Ossessione, in1942; the 1946 remake,starring John Garfield and Lana Turner and directed by theextraordinary Tay Garnett; and Bob Rafelson's underrated 1981 version with JackNicholson and Jessica Lange. When you read the magnificent source forthese movies, you'll be astonished at how three different incarnationscould all, in their own ways, be faithful to the novel.

Cornell Woolrich's I Married a Dead Man also became threemovies: No Man of Her Own, with Barbara Stanwyk; the FrenchI Married a Shadow; and the American comedy, Mrs.Winterborne, which starred Shirley MacLaine and Ricki Lake.Edward Anderson's vivid Thieves Like Us was transformed intoThey Live by Night, Nicholas Ray's first important movie andone of the seminal noir films of the 1940s. It was brilliantly remadein 1974 by the great revisionist director Robert Altman. KennethFearing's The Big Clock was transformed into a marvelous film starring CharlesLaughton; 40 years later, the same source, retitled No Way Out,brought Kevin Costner to stardom. William Lindsay Gresham'sNightmare Alley was the source for Tyrone Power's best movie;Horace McCoy's experimental They Shoot Horses, Don't They?became one of the seminal films of the 1960s.

These dark, evocative novels, when taken together, are a fascinatingstudy of how words can inspire a magnificent variety of cinematicimages and styles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Human but immoral
The LOA volumes are special. They open flat, and have thin but durable paper, readable type and built-in bookmark. Included are writer bios, manuscript histories, and a glossary of archaic slang and topical references. These stories will be familiar to movie buffs; all have been filmed once and some more. I knew all, but that did not lessen the reading experience. Generally, the tales humanize immoral souls. I especially enjoyed the trickery of "The Big Clock," and though it started well, I found "Nightmare Alley" a bit of a slog. Other reviewers provide in-depth coverage of each title (some TOO detailed, in my opinion) so I won't repeat. This is a special treat for fans of the genre and worth the price.

Worth it just for Nightmare Alley
Nightmare Alley is, in my opinion, the best novel ever published in the English language. It's the story of the rise and fall of the magician and spiritualist Stan Carlisle. Aristotle would've liked it. It has a tragic reversal that beats Oedipus Rex. The prose writing is finely honed. William Lindsay Gresham doesn't waste a word. Nightmare Alley is frightening, mystical, satiric... it's more than everything you could hope for in a novel. I read that the author got the material for it while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway also covered that war, and how many books about the war did he milk out of it? Yet somehow William Gresham came out of it with a tale of an American carnival.

Crime Back When it Took Talent to Commit It
Excellent selection of fine writing about crime and vice - another winner provided us by the LOA. It's early era merely extends it's charm into a time past that's as vibrant as if it were set in the last decade, allowing us a nostalgic glimpse into our own literary birthright.

One, entitled "The Big Clock", is about the highly sophisticated and competitive world of big city publishing and involves a murder committed by it's top executive who is losing his ability to cope; a uniquely arranged set of chapters detailing the thoughts and actions of each player through their own individual eyes and each written in the "first person" which adds another layer of intrigue and dimension to it.An innocent man, fearing he will be the prime suspect, becomes enmeshed in an incredibly intricate plot trying to keep himself out of it, wading in deeper and deeper even though he has had nothing to do with the actual murder, but definitely has knowledge of certain of the events that will bring his family - that means his wife - into it which must be avoided at all costs.

In "Thieves Like Us",a gangof bank robbers is on the run through the Oklahoma countryside, living by their wits and for the day because tomorrow may never come; the doomed rampage is prolonged by the lack of law enforcement technology of the era.The visual image projected into the mind of the reader is vivid; of 1930's automobiles, dust and sweat, of desperate, reckless men who have nothing more to lose except their lives, which have never been good anyway - to them, for them or because of them.The old phrase of "Honor among the Thieves" becomes duly recognizable for a few chapters, as does the necessary bonding, and uneasy, false friendship that was tantamount to survival. This, due to it's very nature begins to unravel just when dependence upon one another is needed most; and the loser's urge to "do just one more job" to compensate for the money that seems to run through their fingers like sand through an hourglass overrides any thought process any of them may have had.It has it's anti-hero in one man who seems straight enough to maybe make it if he can just manage to split from his bad seed influences; but nothing can alter his headlong rush down the lonely path to perdition, taking the one lonely person who actually cares about him down with him. He has known nothing else; he has never been nurtured, never been taught the good lessons of life to offset the problems of it; he simply reacts to stimulus; the once child of clay has hardened to brittle nothingness.

Highly recommended for anyone enjoying mystery and suspense in it's finest form.

Splendid Read
This collection of novels from the 30s and 40s was terrific fun and an outstanding introduction to the genre.You can debate whether they're all noir (at least what I expected noir to be); but nonetheless they each convey a distinct impression and view of the time.Without getting into lengthy reviews, I enjoyed Woolrich's "I Married a Dead Man" the most--from his eloquent style to the actual story-line.You know you're reading a master story-teller.Second was Gresham's "Nightmare Alley;" although sometimes I thought he could have expanded on some aspects of the story and shortened other passages (i.e., a little bit of editing would help).But each novel was distinct and enjoyable.Highly recommended.

Thank God for the 1930's and 1940's/
First of all, the Library Of America collection provides the reader with some of the most beautiful hardcover editions available today.That said, the selections chosesn for this edition are all first class; for someone just getting into hard-boiled fiction, this is the ideal place to start.If you're like me and have been reading this genre for many years, this is a perfect volume to add to one's collection. ... Read more