Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season

Book Description

April 15, 1947, marked the most important opening day in baseball history. When Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond that afternoon at Ebbets Field, he became the first black man to break into major-league baseball in the twentieth century. World War II had just ended. Democracy had triumphed. Now Americans were beginning to press for justice on the home front -- and Robinson had a chance to lead the way.

He was an unlikely hero. He had little experience in organized baseball. His swing was far from graceful. And he was assigned to play first base, a position he had never tried before that season. But the biggest concern was his temper. Robinson was an angry man who played an aggressive style of ball. In order to succeed he would have to control himself in the face of what promised to be a brutal assault by opponents of integration.

In Opening Day, Jonathan Eig tells the true story behind the national pastime's most sacred myth. Along the way he offers new insights into events of sixty years ago and punctures some familiar legends. Was it true that the St. Louis Cardinals plotted to boycott their first home game against the Brooklyn Dodgers? Was Pee Wee Reese really Robinson's closest ally on the team? Was Dixie Walker his greatest foe? How did Robinson handle the extraordinary stress of being the only black man in baseball and still manage to perform so well on the field? Opening Day is also the story of a team of underdogs that came together against tremendous odds to capture the pennant. Facing the powerful New York Yankees, Robinson and the Dodgers battled to the seventh game in one of the most thrilling World Series competitions of all time.

Drawing on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and eyewitnesses, as well as newly discovered material from archives around the country, Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious competitor who embodied integration's promise and helped launch the modern civil-rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action, Opening Day brings to life baseball's ultimate story.

Customer Reviews:

An engaging and elegantly written account of Jackie Robinson's groundbreaking rookie season with the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers.......2007-09-08

By the time the middle of the 1940's rolled around Branch Rickey, President of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was already widely acknowledged as one of the smartest, most innovative executives in all of baseball. After all, it had been Rickey who had conceived the notion of a system of minor league farm teams to supply talent to the major league club. In addition, Rickey knew how to evaluate talent like no one else. It got to the point that other general managers did not want to deal with him for fear of getting snookered again. It was sometime around 1944 that Branch Rickey made up his mind that he was going to be the one to integrate Major League Baseball. Always seeking an advantage, Rickey was the first to fully understand that there was a wealth of untapped talent playing in the Negro Leagues. And so it was that before the 1946 season Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was Rickey's plan to bring Robinson along slowing with the hope of Robinson contributing to the big league club in a year or two. After a magnificent season at AAA Montreal in 1946 it was apparent to most observers that Jackie Robinson would likely find himself suiting up for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. "Opening Day" is Jonathan Eig's splendid account of that historic and memorable season. It is a book that will grab your attention immediately and never let go.
I was quite surprised to learn that Jackie Robinson had really not played all that much baseball before signing with the Dodgers. While in college at UCLA Jackie Robinson had run track and been a star football player. He only dabbled in baseball. But Robinson was widely recognized as one of the best all-around athletes in the nation. It was this athleticism that intrigued Branch Rickey. On August 28, 1945 Robinson and Rickey would meet for the very first time. After taking careful measure of the man Rickey was convinced that Jackie Robinson had the proper temperment to endure the difficulties that were sure to arise as major league baseball attempted to integrate its game. After just one year in the minors Branch Rickey deemed Jackie Robinson ready to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In "Opening Day" Jonathan Eig introduces us to Burt Shotten, the unassuming manager of the 1947 Dodgers and to the men who would be Jackie's teammates. Make no mistake about it. There was a ton of pressure on these men as well. Players like Eddie Stanky, Dixie Walker and Pee Wee Reese really had no idea what to expect in 1947. You will come to understand how the players coped with the drama unfolding all around them. And you see how a team that little was expected of would come together over the course of the long season and make this the most memorable season in the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
But of course it is important to understand that "Opening Day" is not just a book about baseball. For this is a story of courage and tenacity.
For one very special season Jackie Robinson took the whole world upon his shoulders. Rickey and Robinson were gambling that if this experiment was successful Major League Baseball would finally see the error of its ways and integrate the game. And it proved to be a risk worth taking. "Opening Day" managed to hold my interest from cover to cover. Jonathan Eig is a wonderful storyteller and I simply could not put this one down. One of the best sports books I have read in a very long time!
Highly recommended!

Walking in Jackie's shoes.......2007-08-04

Author Jonathan Eig does an excellent job of putting the reader in Jackie Robinson's shoes for the 1947 season. You get a good sense of what life was like for Robinson, on and off the field. He and his wife Rachael and young son, Jack Jr., shared a small bedroom in the Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment of a woman in a black neighborhood. The living conditions only added to the stress of Robinson's rookie season. Can you imagine any rookie living that way today?

Eig details how teammates and opponents treated Robinson. Many of his teammates were aloof, at best. Many were Southerns who didn't care for him. The role Dixie Walker played in supposedly circulating a petition protesting Robinson's addition to the Dodgers is covered.

Eig recounts each series of the 1947, detailing how opponents treated Robinson, how he performed on the field, and how he had to room with black families when he was on the road. It's interesting to see how some things changed as the season progressed.

This book is essential for any fan who wants to know more about Jackie Robinson and the 1947 season. It will increase whatever admiration you have for Robinson.

The opening day of my memories..........2007-07-18

indeed the book is about baseball, however it is about soooo much more.
From my perspective of someone who was four years old in 1947 Eig's work instantly turned the shadows on my wall of rememberances into a vivid dance of joy.

There was MacArthur, Rickey, Flatbush Ave, stars earning a few bucks more than Ralph Kramden, a guy named Moses who lead NYC to international prominence and forced "them Bums" out of Brooklyn. I can not tell you how much I signed bitter sweet tears of joy through out this Illid.

I had kept this Father's day gift ominously staring at me from my bedside night table for two weeks as I had declared it's purpose in life was to be my companion on a transatlantic trip w/my son to Spain and Italy.

It turned out to be the best traveling companion I ever had so I knew the era forgave me for letting it linger in the brink for those weeks.

I was reminded that in the late forties why my family, sterotypical Italianos, were die hard Yankee fans and why I had to be different. I flashed back to 1949 when I got a Leaf bubble card and opened to see a black face with a mesmerizing smile looking at me and how nonplused I was when I asked my dad who this "Negro" was since living in San Antonio at the time my exposure to there culture was next to nil.

My foggy view of the Korean "conflict" came to light as did all the references to Caro's _The Power Broker_ started to make sense. How social change evolved and the sturm un drang (sp)of the times accelerated the process. This and so much more kept me enchanted across the pond and I was only jarred back to 2007 when we touched down at Frankfurt and I had so kiss my friend farewell, blinked my eyes and uncremoniously place him in my overnight bag all the while thanking him for sixty years of memories brought to life.

a Must read.......2007-06-18

Jackie Robinson was a true Ambassador of the game of Baseball. it's well known about Branch Rickey signing Jackie to the Dodgers and the Historic Impact of Jackie Robinson being the first Black Baseball Player to break the Color Barrier in Major League baseball 60 years ago. Jackie Robinson was also a 4 letter Athlete at the University of UCLA. He was a Gifted Athlete and a Smart Man whose first Season hadn't been fully told until now. this is a Great Book and it answers so much about just how things went down 60 years ago. Jackie Robinson is a true Civil Rights Leader and a Ground-Breaker who paved the way for so many.

RICK SHAQ GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "I LOVE JACKIE ROBINSON!".......2007-06-12

I am a born and raised Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodger fan. In fact my family moved from New York to Los Angeles the same year as the Dodgers. Before my brothers and I were born, my parents went to Ebbets field every weekend. I still have a box full of Brooklyn scorecards from those days. I was too young to see Jackie in his prime, but my Dad took me to some games in 1956 and I got to see Jackie and all the "Boys Of Summer"! I was a Brooklyn Dodger fanatic even at that age. Besides watching the Dodgers, I read everything available on them, and still do, 50 years later. I can unabashedly say I love Jackie Robinson. One of my many fond memories of my Dad, was him talking to me in front of our tiny black and white TV watching the Dodgers. He said "I have gone to hundreds of baseball games, and have seen 1,000 players, and the most exciting player I ever saw was Jackie Robinson!" "What Jackie did, was not displayed only in the statistics. Over the history of baseball, many players stole more bases. (Such as Ricky Henderson stealing bases with a 7 run lead in the 8th inning.) But no one unnerved every player on the team just by leading off the base and dancing on his pigeon toes, like Jackie. This book points out little, subtle, beneficial affects, on the whole Dodger team, that the average fan wouldn't see. The pitcher and catcher would be so nervous with Jackie dancing around on the base paths, that they would be afraid to throw curve balls, so the batters got better pitches to hit. Jackie stole home more times, than just about anyone except Ty Cobb. When we moved to Los Angeles there was a program on called the "Million Dollar Theatre", in which they showed the same movie on TV every day for a week. When the "Jackie Robinson Story" was on, I watched it every night, and literally memorized the dialogue. People forget that the Brooklyn Dodgers were the "original America's team". And that was because of Jackie. When Jackie broke the color line, he wasn't only fighting for the blacks, but he also was fighting for the Jews, and every minority that has been suppressed. When I watch old sports shows, when they talk about Jackie, I actually get tears in my eyes, because I know what he went through. I've read just about every meaningful book on Jackie and the Brooklyn Dodgers. I would rate this book as the 2nd best Jackie book of them all. (My personal favorite is "Great Time Coming".)

This book was interesting to me as compared to many others, because it not
only zoomed in on his first year as a player, but also went deeper into
his personal life during that first year. All the way to the size of a little room he and Rachel rented, along with their infant son. If you were to ask me, what, with all my knowledge, I have on Jackie's playing, was the biggest thing I learned from this book, I would say his affect, and dominance, in every facet of the game, that didn't appear in his batting average, in a losing cause as a rookie in the 1947 World Series against the hated and despised Yankees. This is a great book and I recommend it to everyone. P.S. In my opinion Jackie was the greatest all around athlete since Jim Thorpe. A lot of people forget that Jackie was the first 4-sport letterman at UCLA. He was an All American football player, the top scorer on UCLA's basketball team, a record setter in the long jump, and of course baseball, which was actually his weakest sport at that time. Duke Snider tells a story about when Duke was in high school in Compton California, and Jackie was playing for Pasadena City College (A junior college). Duke went to see Jackie play a baseball game. One inning Jackie hit a homerun, and then in his full baseball uniform, with spikes on, ran over to the track field between innings, won the broad jump, and ran back to the baseball field in time to play the next inning!

Welcome to the Church Year: An Introduction to the Seasons of the Episcopal Church

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Time after time...
The Mystery of Christ in Time

Welcome to the Church Year: An Introduction to the Seasons of the Episcopal Church
Vicki K. Black
Manufacturer: Morehouse Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0819219665

Book Description

From birthday cakes and anniversary dinners to summer vacations at the beach, each family has its own ways of marking the days and seasons of its life. For the Christian family—especially Episcopalians—it's no different. With an array of colors and an assortment of rich traditions, Episcopalians move through the Church year, marking the days and seasons that tell the story of Christ in our lives—in history and today.

This book—written for newcomers to the Episcopal Church as well as lifelong members—takes readers by the hand and leads them through the Church year, from the first Sunday of Advent through the last Sunday of Pentecost, answering questions like "Why do we use purple in Lent?" and "What does Maundy Thursday mean?" In an easy-to-read conversational style, Welcome to the Church Year introduces readers to the traditions of the Church seasons and explains why we do what we do. But it does more than offer interesting trivia about church vestments and pageantry. Its insights can help readers participate in the liturgies of the Church year in a deeper, more meaningful way.

Customer Reviews:

Time after time..........2006-03-24

Time is a tricky thing to deal with theologically. There are elements of repetition, and elements of once-only. In our church experience, we look back on the once-only kinds of events (both historical and revelatory) through a cyclical pattern that has varying spans; perhaps the most significant is that of the church year, which follows the progress of the seasons, allowing for variation, but also adding stability to the way in which we as a community approach God and the narratives surrounding God's action in the world.

As Vicki Black states, there are two primary cycles in the church year. The first is the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle, and the second is the Lent-Easter-Pentecost cycle. Traditionally, the church year is said to begin at the first Sunday of Advent. This day is always the fourth Sunday before Christmas; while Christmas is always December 25, the variability in the calendar means that the actual date for the beginning of Advent changes from year to year. This cycle continues through the Epiphany, after which 'ordinary' time takes place until the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. ('Ordinary' time refers to the fact that these weeks are numbered with ordinal numbers - second Sunday after Epiphany, etc., and not to the fact that they are outside any of the greater seasons of the church.)

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which falls on different dates in different years, dependent upon the date of Easter. Unlike Christmas, which is fixed on the calendar (which is the Roman solar calendar still in primary use in the world), Easter shifts from year to year, as it is pegged to the Jewish celebration of the Passover, which is governed by a lunar calendar. Lent lasts for 40 days (exclusive of Sundays) until Easter. Holy Week is technically a part of Lent, but has different colours and aspects as things go up to Easter; the Easter season continues until the feast of the Pentecost 50 days later, at which time the church goes into the second, longer period of 'ordinary' time, until the advent of the next Advent season.

Black discusses each of these six elements (Advent-Christmas-Epiphany and Lent-Easter-Pentecost) in separate chapters, along with a special chapter on Holy Week, and an introductory chapter. Black's development is personal, in that she discusses how she incorporates this into her family with her husband and son; she also allows for variations of practice in different parishes and dioceses. There is a minimum of technical language here - the text is very accessible, yet doesn't 'talk down' to the reader. It is both engaging and inviting.

The book can be used by a discussion group at the church - despite the division into eight chapters, it could easily be used as a Lenten discussion book or for an inquirer's class to learn aspects of the church year. There are potential discussion questions listed at the back of each chapter. The book itself is rather short and easily read in a short time, but can be useful as a reference throughout the year, too.

This is part of a series by Morehouse Press, which also includes 'Welcome to the Book of Common Prayer' (also by Vicki Black), 'Welcome to Sunday' and 'Welcome to the Episcopal Church' (both by Christopher Webber). All of these books are great as introductions to the ways (sometimes mysterious) Episcopalians do things in church - useful for newcomers as well as life-long members who might never have learned the 'why' behind what the church does.

The Mystery of Christ in Time.......2006-01-01

This book is a wonderful introduction to the ways that Episcopalians/Anglicans both celebrate and remember the redemptive work of God in Jesus and then in the Holy Spirit. It is a short work that is easy to read, and includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter, making it idea for small-group discussions inside and outside of church.

Vicki Black is a deaconess in the Episcopal Church, USA. She writes as a fellow Christian on the way, as well as someone who has truly lived the Church Year and pondered its meaning deeply in her heart. One of the most personal elements of the book, however, is that she also writes as the mother of two young boys. Throughout the book she discusses different ways that she and her husband have sought to make the different feasts and fasts intelligible to her elder son (who was 5 years old at the time this book was written) so that, rather than being diverted by Santa Clause and the Easter bunny, he might see Christ more clearly.

There are seven seasons in the Church Year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter to Pentecost, and Pentecost/Trinity. At the heart of it all is the belief that Christmas did not simply happens 2,000 years ago, but happens now, "in the mystery of God choosing to dwell within humankind, a mystery that transcends all time" (p. 5). While discussing the seasons, Black discusses the development of both universal and local traditions, the history behind the seasons, the current liturgy in the Episcopal Church, USA, as well the Biblical readings and themes that permeate each season. A truly holistic worldview emerges.

I began reading this book shortly before Christmas Eve (so, while still in the season of Epiphany), and just finished it today, December 31, 2005. While America as a secular nation will celebrate tomorrow as "New Year's Day", I learned that in the Western Church, we celebrate tomorrow as the "Feast of the Holy Name". While in the secular arena, Christmas is just one day, I learned that for Christians, Christmas is a season that lasts for 12 days: from Christmas day to Epiphany (Jan. 6).

What has been opened up for me in reading this book is a sense that regardless of whatever national days or natural seasons are going on around me, there is a "higher" time that constantly is turning to God's own redemptive activity. It both fills the heart and the mind.

Bleak Seasons: The Sixth Chronicle of the Black Company (Glittering Stone/Glen Cook, Bk 1)

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Bleak Seasons
It opened my eyes.
This series should be bigger than the Wheel Of Time!
An excellent book for those who have read its predecessors.

Bleak Seasons: The Sixth Chronicle of the Black Company (Glittering Stone/Glen Cook, Bk 1)
Glen Cook
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312861052

Customer Reviews:

Bleak Seasons.......2003-07-11

Murgen has seizures in which he experiences memories of the horrible siege of Dejagore. In addition, he uses the comatose wizard Smoke as a source of clairvoyant information.

Whoa. Trippy.

I've heard some readers suggest that this was where they felt the series started to degenerate, but I liked this volume better than any others since the first one. It was dramatic and character-driven. Although much of it recaps the events of the book immediately before it in the series, it's from a very different point of view. When we finally get to the "now" moment, it's powerful. The inventive structure even includes some direct-address second person exposition-- and it works wonderfully.

It is, admittedly, confusing and disjointed at times.

I'm not sure how I feel about what Cook has done with cultures in this series. He's got his pseudo-cult of Kali, and now the Nyeung Bao, a pseudo-Vietnamese ethniticy. On one hand I like his use of non-Western images and ideas, but on the other hand I think there's a bit of exoticism going on, and I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer completely invented societies.

Overall, I think this book, in its different structure and emphasis, gives the series a new spark of life. It deepens our understanding of several characters, while maintaining the straightforward tone and grey morality that are the series' hallmarks.

It opened my eyes........1999-07-03

The characters were so funny and interesting. I have read about 30 TSR books, but The Black Company are something else! I have grown tired of shallow characters and bad plots. These books are like fantasy books should be, funny and adventourous, not just bad wizards hurling battlespells. Read them!!!!!!

This series should be bigger than the Wheel Of Time!.......1997-08-07

An excellent read, though it might be confusing if you haven't read the rest of the Black Company series. No all-powerful characters. Characters you can relate to on some level. This isn't some flowery fantasy ala Eddings. It can be brutal. There is no definite line between Good and Evil...just like in our reality. An excellent series...get them all: The Black Company / Shadows Linger / The White Rose / The Silver Spike / Shadow Games / Dreams Of Steel / Bleak Seasons / She Is The Darkness (to be released Fall 1997)

An excellent book for those who have read its predecessors........1996-10-20

For fans of Glen Cook's "Black Company" books, "Bleak Seasons" will be a treat. As he did previously in his "Dread Empire" saga, Mr. Cook spends an entire book giving the reader an alternate view of events already related earlier in the series. This means, however, that anyone not familiar with the history of the plot will be completely, utterly and hopelessly lost. If this is the reader's first exposure to Glen Cook, the best advice is for them to gently return the book to its place, to be sought out later when it will make more sense. The previous books of the Black Company, all noted in Amazon.com's catalog, should be read first. At the very least, the first two Books of the South ("Shadow Games" and "Dreams of Steel") are required in order to make sense of this book. For those who have read and enjoyed those, however, this book can be highly recommended

Bleak Seasons (Chronicles of The Black Company)

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Not Free SF Reader
Worth a read, but start with The Black Company
worst black company novel to date, 1 star added for series continuity
Crows Always Watch
A good writer gone bad

Bleak Seasons (Chronicles of The Black Company)
Glen Cook
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0812555325

Book Description

"Let me tell you who I am, on the chance that these scribblings do survive......I am Murgen, Standard bearer of the Black Company, though I bear the shame of having lost that standard in battle. I am keeping these Annals because Croaker is dead., One-Eye won't, and hardly anyone else can read or write. I will be your guide for however long it takes the Shadowlanders to force our present predicament to its inevitable end...."So writes Murgen, seasoned veteran of the Black Company. The Company has taken the fortress of Stormgard from the evil Shadowlanders, lords of darkness from the far reaches of the earth. Now the waiting begins.Exhausted from the siege, beset by sorcery, and vastly outnumbered, the Company have risked their souls as well as their lives to hold their prize. But this is the end of an age, and great forces are at work. The ancient race known as the Nyueng Bao swear that ancient gods are stirring. the Company's commander has gone mad and flirts with the forces of darkness. Only Murgen, touched by a spell that has set his soul adrift in time, begins at last to comprehend the dark design that has made pawns of men and god alike.

Customer Reviews:

Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03

One of the weakest Black Company novels. If you like the others though, this is still good enough to read, as the whole sordid saga continues. Sordid from the point of view of the Company, anyway, and the conditions they have to endure to survive. That seems to have always been the case. Here, they do have one or two small advantages that keep them going, however.

Worth a read, but start with The Black Company.......2007-04-04

By far the weakest of the series, and it still gets 3 stars. The others are all 4 or 5s. Start at the beginning of the series, with "The Black Company." By the time you get to this book, you'll be caught up with the characters, and you'll be more willing to give the book a chance. It's unfortunate that this book is a disappointment compared to the fantastic reading of the other books, but I think it's still worth reading.

There is a story, and you'll start to see it about half way through, but it's really difficult to find at first. With the unreliable narrator and the temporal skipping, things come at you in bits and pieces, and it takes some time before you can starting putting them together so they make sense. It is an interesting method of conveying the confusion and uncertainty of the narrator, but a real struggle to read.

The rest of the series is great, and it gets better again after this, so if you've had any doubts, read the rest of the books, even if this one proves too much of a challenge. I stuck with it, and though it was daunting at first, I felt vindicated by the end.

Honestly though, I don't think you'd be too ill served by skipping this one and simply reading the other books in the series. They're all wonderful, and you won't have any fleeting thoughts about forgetting the following books simply because this one is hard to follow at first.

worst black company novel to date, 1 star added for series continuity.......2006-08-17

This novel, after a 6-year hiatus from publishing black company stories after 'dreams of steel,' is a distinct change of style for Glen Cook. Told from the viewpoint of Murgen, this novel features externally forced temporal dislocations of murgen which obviously will serve some plot goal as murgen sees things in a couple of different time frames. Unlike some of cook's novels where there are 2 timelines (present, past background) told in intervals, this does not work nearly as well, being of the same character in what to us are fairly closely related events (4 years in story-time, but you cannot tell). It is clear that after 6 years mr. cook has some different ideas on how to approach the cliffhanger he left in the previous novel.

The italicized prophetic mumbo-jumbo without context and murgen's seizure/travel glimpses of third areas are sufficiently vague to add little or nothing to the story.

Croaker is marginalized as a character, and Lady is nearly absent in this novel. Most major characters (barring the circus sorcerers) in even the previous 2 books are marginalized in this novel.

To the extent a reader of this series wants to know the rest of the story and reads this novel with that goal in mind, it gets better later in the book, but it is arguably the most mundane glen cook book i have read to date.

Crows Always Watch.......2006-07-23

Glittering Plain marks the turning point in the Black Company's quest to return to Khatovar. A new narrator - Murgen - steps in to permanently take the place of Croaker, who has disappeared in battle and is presumed dead. Dejagore has fallen to the Company, but now is under siege by the Shadowmasters. Lady, who filled in for one volume is outside the city seeking a way to free it, but the real story is within, in the desperate struggle of the members of the Black Company and their cohorts to survive both the battles and the betrayals of their own kind. Murgen is a weaker narrator than either Croaker or Lady, and will take a bit of getting used to. As his character develops over this volume and the next the weakness plays an important role. But, at first, you may get the feeling that Glen Cook has slipped up a bit.

Much of Murgen's weakness is the result of several disasters he is trying to deal with at the same time he is plagued by a continual series of fugue states that have the narrative darting over both time and place. Cook always liked to tell more than one story at a time, but in the Glittering Plain series the literary device becomes the mainstay of the narrative. As much as I liked the book, I found this a confusing approach, with much of the story being told passively. But the story has its own strengths as well as Cook brings the reader further into the cultures of the South and tells a more realistic story of life under siege than a fantasy story normally gets.

Bleak Seasons is an unsettling rather than a dramatic book, told from a less than heroic viewpoint. It sets the stage for the volumes to come and introduces the new themes that Cook has chosen to develop. Most important, we meet the Nyueng Bao, a people on a sacred pilgrimage who were caught up in the war with the Shadowmasters. This strange people, reminiscent of the indigenous Vietnamese who played similar roles in that war, must hang their hopes on Murgen and his fellows despite vast differences. Murgen himself is drawn into a Nyueng Bao family and much of the volume and those that follow will explore the story of a proud people forced by circumstance to assisted people they would otherwise consider hopeless barbarians.

It's rather difficult to talk about this book without strewing spoilers all over, so you will have to forgive me for staying away from the plot. This is an intricate novel that labors under a sense of impending doom. It is an intimate, often confusing novel that is often more intensely personal than its predecessors. Cook is trying to shift gears and I think he succeeds, although he will leave some readers behind in the process. If you stick with it, I think you will find the result is satisfying, but if you are looking for more pure military fantasy you may be a bit perplexed.

A good writer gone bad.......2005-12-16

I love Cook's other Black Company books, but this one is atrocious. Bleak Seasons is possibly the worst book I have ever read. Confusing, convoluted, and a real chore to get through. I hope the final three in the series are better. What a stinker.

Bleak Seasons and She Is the Darkness (The Black Company: Glittering Stone, Volume 1)

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Bleak Seasons and She Is the Darkness (The Black Company: Glittering Stone, Volume 1)
Glen Cook
Manufacturer: SFBC Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 073941299X

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A Modern Pop Crime Masterpiece
Hiaasen's best, hands down.
Tourist Season
A Riot of Fun Terror!!!
Not one of my favorite Hiaasen

Tourist Season
Carl Hiaasen
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0399131450

Book Description

The only trace of the first victim was his Shriner's fez washed up on the Miami Beach. The second victim, the head of the city's chamber of commerce, was found dead with a toy alligator lodged in his throat. And that was just the beginning ...

Now Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, must move from muckraking to rooting out murder ... in a caper that will mix football players, politicians, and police with a group of anti-development fanatics and a very, hungry crocodile.

Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, and Native Tongue, by Carl Hiaasen, are also available from Random House AudioBooks. Skin Tight is available as a Random House Price-Less Audio.

Edward Asner won five Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Lou Grant -- first on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and then on Lou Grant. He has garnered much acclaim for his many television, theatrical, and film performances. He has previously read Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, and Skin Tight, all by Carl Hiaasen, for Random House AudioBooks.

Tourist Season Warner is available in paperback from Warner Books.

Customer Reviews:

A Modern Pop Crime Masterpiece.......2007-10-19

Fans of crime and popular fiction can rejoice in Carl Hiaasen's excellent novel Tourist Season. Much, much darker than his later works - you can tell that he's passionate about Florida's landscape - and yet entirely accessible by adults looking for a good read, Tourist Season delivers in all ways it should.

Sure, the romantic subplot seems a bit forced, but it's still entertaining. The characters are ALL interesting, regardless of their quirks. They're all very well drawn, if a bit caricaturish in the end, and they work.

Tourist Season is also one of Hiaasen's shorter works, so the prose seems cut with a straight razor, moving well into the story as early as possible without losing the reader. There's not a lot of unnecessary backstory. In fact, there's just enough to make you care about the characters before you get pulled along into the depths of the beautiful Florida landscape.

What really makes the novel hum, however, is the slight lesson running underneath the story. Hiaasen clearly wants the reader to understand that the relationship between the story and his intentions are symbiotic, so the ending seems a little more preachy than it really should.

But, overall, the book is absolutely great. A spectacular read for those who have read all the Elmore Leonard they care to and need something funnier.

Hiaasen's best, hands down........2007-09-19

If your reading experience is like mine, you tend to like the first book by a particular author best, simply because you read it first. Tourist Season was my first Carl Hiaasen, but I'm convinced that it's NOT just my favorite because it was my first. This is an absolute gem of a book, and I've yet to see its equal within this genre.

Some of my favorite writers are my favorites because they write great stories, some because of their wonderful use of language, and some because of their intriguing characters. Carl Hiaasen is among those ranks for all three reasons. He will have you laughing out loud, opining on politics, and on the edge of your seat, all on the same page. I cannot recommend Tourist Season highly enough.

Tourist Season.......2007-09-10

Typical Hiassen, not one of his best but true to form, a foot in reality and the other one in a world of lunatics

A Riot of Fun Terror!!!.......2007-07-22

Tourist Season is a rapid fire, lightning fast read that brings together all the things that make a book a classic. This is just plain fun from start to finish. The macbre horror is mixed with humor so perfectly that you catch yourself rooting for both sides. As another review stated, "Terrorism was once funny"...this is from a more innocent time, where not-so-innocent acts attempt to fight against a stark and sad reality. The hero of the story is just as torn as the reader as things just seem to get worse all the time. Tourist Season is not a mystery by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an awesome read that I highly reccomend. Any reader who is also a Jimmy Buffet fan will find the inspiration for more than one of his songs as well as a slew of lines that made it into his lyrics. Just plain cool! A MUST read!

Not one of my favorite Hiaasen .......2007-07-21

I am a Hiaasen fan, but this was too angry for my tastes. The trademark Hiaasen humor just wasn't there. Maybe I just missed Skink!

Average customer rating:

I've Got to Go with Gary Griffith's Review
Murder, eh?
A decent police procedural set in Canada
Highly recommended
Procedural

Black Fly Season
Giles Blunt
Manufacturer: Berkley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0425209571

Book Description

When a woman stumbles into a tavern, covered in black fly bites, with a bullet in her brain and no memory, homicide detectives John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme know someone left her for dead. And if word gets out that she isn't, someone will try again

Customer Reviews:

I've Got to Go with Gary Griffith's Review.......2007-01-05

Read GG's review first.

Black Fly Season was also my first introduction to the author. I agree with Gary in all respects. I would add that the emotional portraits of both the manic-despressed wife of one of the protagonist, and the drug addicted brother of one of the main characters are spot on. These passages resonate with authenticity, especially the section on how addicts kid themselves continuously that they will quit "next Monday."

I also enjoyed the healthy dose of entymology and near-voodoo religion. Blunt was very factual yet entertaining in introducing these themes and they added greatly to the book.

One of the other reviewers downplayed Blunt in comparison to Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight series placed in the UP of Michigan. Those were nice, but there is far more characterization and plotting in this book than in either of the first two by Hamilton.

I am getting my hands on everything Blunt has written with high hopes they're all as good as Black Fly Season.

Murder, eh?.......2006-08-26

I enjoyed this novel. This is my 2nd Giles Blunt novel, the first being Delicate Storm. I liked this one better. For one thing, it seemed somewhat more plausible. It was certainly gripping. There were enough strange but plausible twists, oddball characters, and unexpected developments to keep me going, wondering what would happen next.

There are several specific things I like about this, or perhaps Blunt's writing in general. First, and perhaps most important for me, is the sense of place. The locations, the dialogue, and the characters, all come across as very authentic. Even some of the screwier characters that appear in passing are sketched very nicely. Blunt is to northern Ontario as Mankell is to the Skane region in Sweden.

The characters, the action, and the dialogue generally seem very natural. As the plot unfolds, at each step the characters' actions and dialogue seem reasonable given the context. Things go right or wrong, people react, and move on. Even in the face of very complex or unpleasant situations, the characters seem low-key and their reactions fairly professional. I contrast this approach to writing with that in some other contemporary mystery series, where it seems like everything the lead characters do or say has to be over-the-top in order to sustain the reader's interest.

As some of the other reviews mentioned, there is a side-plot involving the medical condition of Cardinal's wife. Normally this sort of thing really turns me off. I really dislike mysteries that spend more time talking about the main characters' issues, whether alcoholism, illness, or a relationship, than they do about the main plot. I am thinking in particular here of some of the Rebus novels, which in a few cases became more about Rebus and his personal demons than about solving a mystery. Fortunately, Blunt keeps the elements involving the wife's condition in check, and the related passages are brief enough that they are not an annoying and melodramatic distraction in the way that such digressions often are.

A decent police procedural set in Canada.......2006-07-15

I bought this book based upon the review of Gary Griffiths who has a spotlight review on this book here. I think we are not supposed to refer to other reviews here, and I am not going to do so. I am going to refer to the reviewer though because I think he does a fine job and I admire his reiews a lot. Gary writes honest, insightful reviews and if he thinks a book is great then there is a fair-to-middlin' chance I am going to think it is great too. We don't always agree though and this book is one of those instances.

I thought this was a good book but not a great book. All the pieces were there. Interesting, sympathetic characters, with interesting human-scale problems of their own, a puzzling crime, interesting forensics, clever/weird bad guys, and a great setting that is unusual: the north of Canada. Somehow though, somehow....when I finished this book my honest summation is that this is good, really good actually, but it doesn't quite reach that memorable plateau which defines a novel as "great". Perhaps I should have started at the beginning of the series and worked forward for a better appreciation of the characters and their devleopment because as it stands I don't think this book and the characters will be that memorable to me. If I was going to make a recommendation for a "northern" mystery series I would recommend the Alex McKnight series by Steve Hamilton first. In my mind that is a truly great series.

So my opinion is this is a solid, good mystery that won't disappoint you at all. You'll enjoy reading it and won't regret the investment of time and money. Yet for a truly great series of reads, in a similar setting and environment, check out the McKnight series by Hamilton. It's first-class, memorable stuff that is wonderful enough to make you anxiously await the annual next installment year after year.

Highly recommended.......2006-06-13

I loved Blunt's first book and was extremely happy to note that this second one is even better. He paints a brooding, uncomfortable picture of a Canadian town, but contrast the gruesome storyline with very human and at times gentle lead characters.

Procedural.......2006-05-20

Perhaps starting in the middle of a series has lessened the impact, but I found this to be just average. I'll have to go and look for the beginning.

Summers with the Bears: Six Seasons in the North Woods

Average customer rating:

An amazing story.
A New Understanding of Bears
Magical!
Best book I ever read!!!!
short and sweet

Summers with the Bears: Six Seasons in the North Woods
Jack Becklund
Manufacturer: Hyperion
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786885378

Book Description

In the animal-loving tradition of James Herriot, this delightful story, now in paperback, explores the relationship between man and one of natures smartest, most interesting, and sensitive creaturesthe black bearand how this experience enriched two peoples lives. Poignant and entertaining, and enhanced by photos that reveal a unique and amazing friendship, Summers with the Bears is a fascinating chronicle of what happens when humans and wild animals cross the boundaries into each others world.

Customer Reviews:

An amazing story........2005-03-31

Though I have often thought of the similarities between the noses of bears and my own labrador retriever, and been tempted to ascribe those labrador characteristics to bears, I knew better. My reading about bears has included many tales of bear maulings and their extreme medical consequences. This book, though, showed me that bears can equal our canine buddies in establishing full and rich relationships. This unique story of love among the Minnesota woods made me wish that I could pull up stakes and establish a home in the woods and wait for the bears to visit. It really makes one wonder what relationships with other animals we might have if given the opportunity.

A New Understanding of Bears.......2004-01-03

I never understood black bears until reading Jack Becklund's book. I laughed and cried, feeling as if I was right there with Jack and his wife Patti. Afterward, I wanted to visit that area, see the house, see the yard where Little Bit and the other bears played. I now want to find out more about helping these wonderful creatures survive. I have never been more moved by a book. I would love to communicate with Jack and Patti some time and get a picture of "Conversation with a Bear". They are incredible people and so fortunate to have had such a gift in their lives as becoming intimately involved with God's beautiful wildlife.
I would HIGHLY recommend this book. I am reading it again now for the second time. It is hard to put down. Thank you Jack and Patti for sharing this beautiful experience with us.
Joanne Setlock
Wallace Ave.
Buffalo, New York 14216

Magical!.......2003-01-11

If you love animals, nature, the great outdoors, and reading about people who love all those things too, please get this book, sit down with a box of tissues, and enjoy! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll shake your head in wonderment. The author Jack Becklund and his wife Patti, move deep into the Minnesota forests. Their property is home to deer gamboling on the lawn, chipmunks and hand-fed squirrels munching seeds on the porch,wild mallard ducks swimming and splashing in the creek below, and a colorful array of native birds. But the real heart of the story is Little Bit, the black bear cub who toddles onto the back deck one day, and stays for the next six summers as a welcome, loving, and deeply loved guest of the couple. She is a magical spirit, a living, breathing gift from God, sent to bring great joy to their lives. We are honored to meet Little Bit's cubs, her mates, and numerous other black bears who live in the area, and come to trust the Becklunds. The story itself is incredible, but between the lines, we watch the couple come to love and appreciate the power of this sacred trust they've been given...the joy of the relationship they share with these magnificent animals.This is a book for all time...a classic in every sense of the word. The photos are magnificent, and bring the personalities of the animals into beautiful focus.

Best book I ever read!!!!.......2000-08-21

Summer with the bears is by far the best book I've ever read. If you don't have it or haven't read it do so now. It will change your life in some way I'm sure. I first read about it in the Reader's Digest and put my copy on order for the moment it came out. Little bit and all of the other bears touched my heart so much it's hard ot describe. I felt like I was there with them as events were happening. Jack and Patti you are so lucky to have had this special time in your lives and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your sharing it with us. Just goes to show that all animals are not as we always imagine them to be, yet we know at the same time they are not all created equal. There are those that possess a special trait and willingness to be different, that was little bit. Your book was written from your heart, and the pictures helped us to be there too. I laughed and I cried along with you. so few of us will experience what you did interacting with the bears on the level that you did. I attribute your book to helping me find a hidden talent I did not know existed in me. I started sketching, and yes mostly bears. I did one of you and Patti with little bit, if you'd ever like them all you need to do is ask and they are yours. You touched my life in such a special way that in turn I'd like to touch your lives too. Hope there will be more books and I wish you all the best in your lives. Thank You for sharing your special lives with the world.

short and sweet.......2000-07-29

Summer With The Bears is about a couple who decide to leave the city for an adventure in Minnesota to observe the bears. At first Jack & Patti started out just observing the bears for hours to learn their habits and earn their confidence. And they do earn their trust. There were many more animals that they befriended. They kept a journal on everything that happened concerning the bears and other animals. They even named the bears.

As a true animal lover, I really liked this book. The pictures added to the book. If you are looking for a short and sweet read this is the book for you.

Average customer rating:

I Want My Money Back!

Good, journal-style book

Fascinating

A sports book for intellectuals

This book is honest

Black Planet: Facing Race during an NBA Season
David Shields
Manufacturer: Bison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0803293542

Amazon.com

In his earlier work, David Shields came across as a fairly traditional storyteller. Even Dead Languages, his fictional rumination on a stutterer's tongue-tied existence, was essentially a coming-of-age story. But he began to show his true colors with Remote, a fractured, full-body immersion in media culture. This deeply amusing work of nonfiction revealed the author to be a neurotic, navel-gazing cousin of Nicholson Baker. Now comes Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, whose putative topic--professional basketball--would seem to return Shields to his extroverted roots. (His first novel, in fact, revolved around a college basketball player.) Yet this is ultimately as postmodernist a work as its predecessor, and it takes us not only into the author's heart but his boudoir. Black Planet's fusion of public spectacle with private mortification makes it his funniest book to date.

A word of explanation: technically speaking, Black Planet is a chronicle of the Seattle SuperSonics during the 1994-1995 season. Since the team blew its shot at the playoffs, there's no chance for an uplifting grand finale. Yet Shields had a different sort of hoop dream in mind from the very beginning. "The NBA," he writes, "is a place where, without ever acknowledging it--and because it's never acknowledged, it's that much more potent and telling--white fans and black players enact and quietly explode virtually every racial issue and tension in the culture at large. Race, the league's taboo topic, is the league's true subject." It's the author's true subject, too, and he goes at it from every angle--attending games, recording call-in radio shows, and making some abortive attempts to cozy up to the players. Point guard Gary Payton is his true Penelope. Why? Well, his motormouth style does suggest an "indivisibility... of playing and talking, of life and language." But more to the point, he offers a handy tabula rasa for Shields's fantasy life, a trash-talking personification of bad behavior: "Which is why, in Seattle the Good, I so love Gary Payton. He's not really bad, he's only pretend-bad--I know that--but he allows me to fantasize about being bad."

If Shields were simply slapping society on the wrist for its half-submerged racism, Black Planet would wear out its welcome in the first quarter. But he's consistently hardest on himself, so the book becomes not only a social critique but a critique of social critiques, cutting the ground from under itself in an infinite and entertaining loop-the-loop. Shields may not be the first writer to transform a fan's notes into literary gold--Frederick Exley beat him to the punch--but he's the most rigorously intelligent one in a long, long time. Swish! --James Marcus

Book Description

The National Basketball Association is a place where white fans and black players enact virtually every racial issue and tension in U.S. culture. Following the Seattle SuperSonics for an entire season, David Shields explores how, in a predominantly black sport, white fans—including especially himself—think about and talk about black heroes, black scapegoats, and black bodies.

Critically acclaimed and highly controversial, Black Planet was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN USA Award, and was named one of the Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 1999 by Esquire, Newsday, Los Angeles Weekly, and Amazon.com.

Customer Reviews:

I Want My Money Back!.......2006-11-22

I picked up a hardbound version of this book for $0.10 at a library book sale, and would take it back for a refund if I could. It seems to me the author is convinced of his premise, then tries to use peoples' words and actions to justify/prove it, often unsuccessfully. I think one problem is his professorial way of writing: the numerous "Cf.s" were a distraction and contrived.

I tried to finish the book but couldn't take it anymore about halfway through.

Good, journal-style book.......2006-03-02

I read this book several years ago and in retrospect it couldn't have come out at a better time.

Conversations on race is the larger topic of this book which uses the changing landscape of the NBA as a metaphor for the growing indifference & misunderstandings of whites of African-Americans.

The book explores the passing of the grinning, assimilationist & non-threatening generation of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas being supplanted by an increasingly urban-flavored generation not as concerned with making McDonald's commercials and appealing to Middle Class America.

(NOTE: this book is written just before the invasion of the "hip hop generation" led by Allen Iverson whose gangsta, thugged-out image, braids, baggy pants and corn rows rubbed a predominantly white fanbase the wrong way, opening all sorts of new NBA image discussions).

Shields chronicles the Seattle SuperSonics in the mid-1990s, attends games and stays up on every notable on court act or off court run-in and then examines how hoops fans make judgments based upon stereotypes or racial perceptions.

The book's premise is that the overwhelming black, overwhelming rags-to-riches tales of its majority of players combine to create the one forum in the country where whites are the outsiders and thus forced to (and ultimately resist, if you consider the standing of the overwhelmingly white media and white hoops fans) relate to a group of players from the wrong side of the tracks that otherwise had always been forced to assimilate and relate to Middle America (and thus, a juxtaposition of the two roles in the NBA).

For me, this book's topic couldn't be more relevant today given the emergence of an NBA generation that's as polarizing as any the sport's world has ever seen.

It might be a little harder to stomach though if you're a reader not in touch with your own honest racial perceptions.

Fascinating.......2004-04-04

Insightful, observant and brave, David Shields' Black Planet is a thought-provoking look at America's sports culture and, ultimately, America's culture in general. Never afraid to use himself as a subject, the author takes a look at the racial dynamic apparant -but rarely confronted upon- in the NBA.

Even for the non-sports fan, this book will prove to be an enlightening read because basketball only provides the backdrop for the author's exploration of society and self.

It should be noted that the author is not a sports writer. In fact, the author often seems out of place in the various professional basketball environments he roams and inhabits in the book. Such a feeling of disconnect, however, aids the text, I believe; such an outside-looking-in perspective gives the book a voice I suspect many readers will recognize--their own.

A sports book for intellectuals.......2004-03-15

Remote is an intelligent exploration of the deeper meanings of basketball. David Shields follows the Seattle Sonics during the '94-'95 season, commenting not only on the dynamics of play but also on issues of race and our need for the other, for transcendence from our lives through sports fandom.

So compelling is Shield's case for an intellectual take on basketball that I, a nonsportsfan type, began watching basketball games after reading this book. If you're up for delving into the greater meanings of fandom and the catharsis of sports, this is a great book to read. If you're a fan looking for basketball stats and play by play description look elsewhere. This is more than just a book about sports--it's a book about what sports mean to us.

This book is honest.......2003-09-05

This book is courageous in attempting to take an honest look at something we're all tired of talking about, but is still a very real problem facing America: the salience of racism.

What better arena to examine the still lingering remnants of racism in this great country of ours then sports -- and more specifically, the NBA.

In a league dominated by African American players, where the term "minority" is given a new meaning, Shields begins this book by observing and analyzing the very real, but often ignored racial dynamic.

Contrary to popular belief, and as this book shows, racism is a problem in this country -- one that doesn't end just because one steps off the street and onto a basketball court.

BUT THIS BOOK ISN"T ABOUT RACISM, per se, but the power of human perspective.

Shields has a fascination with observing African American players, but documents his very real opinions and emotions as it relates to what he observes.

The twist is he goes back-and-forth analyzing how his opinions, judgments and thoughts are all shaped, in part, by who he is as a middle aged white man (not meant to sound negative, just truthful).

Truth is everybody, black, white or whatever, uses such lenses when viewing society. Sociology supports this theory (but that's another subject).

Shields uses his book to function as somewhat of a microcosm for how whites view blacks in this country by exploring how sport -- specifically here the popularity and racial makeup of the NBA -- exploits, exposes and reveals every racial attitude, myth and misconception some whites have about blacks.

Black Planet is a magnifying glass that flips the script on the mainstream while showing the power of difference and misunderstanding.

I, as an African American sports writer, also find this book humorous just to see the number of white-bread reporters whose attempts to sound more urban, hip & cool when dealing with black athletes are, unbeknowngst to the reporters, igorant, condescending and insulting.

This alone is a bold-faced reflection that books are still judged by their covers.

The astounding part of the issue Black Planet addresses is the fact that White America can pretty much live in ignorance -- involuntarily and unknowingly -- to the great divide in how African Americans experience this country.

But one of the few avenues in which White America is forced to care and at least deal with the difference in experience is sport -- and especially the NBA.

Shields' is honest and I'd say accurate in his assessment of how race does in fact play a critical part in how sports reporters interact with and interpret the actions of black athletes -- something to think about the next time we pick up our papers and read a story about Allen Iverson, Randy Moss (or for that matter, Kobe Bryant).

Average customer rating:

Beautiful translation of a moving childhood memoir

The Black Seasons (Jewish Lives)
Michal Glowinski
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0810119595

Book Description

A mosaic of memories from a childhood in the Warsaw Ghetto and a life in hiding on the other side of the wall

When six-year-old Michal Glowinski first heard the adults around him speak of the ghetto, he understood only that the word was connected with moving-and conjured up a fantastical image of a many-storied carriage pulled through the streets by some umpteen horses. He was soon to learn that the ghetto was something else entirely. A half-century later, Glowinski, now an eminent Polish literary scholar, leads us haltingly into Nazi-occupied Poland. Scrupulously attentive to the distance between a child's experience and an adult's reflection, Glowinski revisits the images and episodes of his childhood: the emaciated violinist playing a Mendelssohn concerto on the ghetto streets; his game of chess with a Polish blackmailer threatening to deliver him to the Gestapo; and his eventual rescue by Catholic nuns in an impoverished, distant convent. In language at once spare and eloquent, Glowinski explores the horror of those years, the fragility of existence, and the fragmented nature of memory itself.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful translation of a moving childhood memoir.......2005-09-06

The Black Seasons lets the reader share the fragments of childhood memories of a Jewish child survivor in Poland during German occupation and the Holocaust. This brilliant translation of Michel Glowinski's recounting of his childhood memories is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the experiences of Jewish families in Poland during the time of the "industrialized mass murder", and at the end also shares the reflections of the author at a later time in his life. This book is unique in that it is the honest recounting of fragmentary childhood memories of a time of constant unspeakable fear, told in articulate and eloquent language.

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