Amazon.com
"The basic structure of an Elmore Leonard plot," Larry Beinhart explains in How to Write a Mystery, "is that a big tough guy pushes a little tough guy. The little guy doesn't take it. He shoves back. The little guy is the kinda guy, the harder you shove him, the more trouble he's gonna be. In the end, the big guy really wishes he'd picked someone else to shove. When Leonard started he wrote westerns, and in those early books you can see the bones without an X-ray. I recommend Valdez Is Coming to anyone who wants to understand the structure of an Elmore Leonard novel."
When part-time constable Bob Valdez tries to put together a compensation package for a woman whose husband was killed in a case of mistaken identity, the matter quickly escalates into a brutal struggle to regain honor and dignity. There's not a wasted moment; every scene, every line of dialogue moves the story forward to the inevitable showdown where, as Valdez says, "you get one time, mister, to prove who you are." The second novel in this volume, Hombre--perhaps Leonard's best-known Western novel--is just as relentlessly plot-driven, with characters that reveal their psychological complexity strictly through what they do and say as they struggle to make their way to safety across a hot desert in the aftermath of a stagecoach holdup. The only difference between these two novels and classic Leonard crime novels like Get Shorty or Out of Sight is the time and place. Other than that, you've got two classic tales of hard-boiled professionals who know that every step they take is a matter of laying their reputations and their lives on the line. --Ron Hogan
Book Description
Valdez Is Coming: The shotgun went off aimed at the wrong man, held in the wrong man's hands. A crowd had gathered to drink and laugh and shoot down at the old shack where a supposed killer was hiding out. Then Bob Valdez, humble town constable and stage-line shotgun rider, walked down to the shack. Moments later Valdez had killed an innocent man, and the crowd, sapped of its bloodlust, wandered off. But for Bob Valdez it was far from over. He wanted the wealthy landowner who had enginnered the scene to give the dead man's woman money for a wrongful death. They laughed at Bob Valdez. They taunted him and beat him until Valdez had no choice but to come back to them again. Only this time Valdez was coming with three guns--three guns and the will to teach a rich man's army how costly atonement can get.
Hombre: Set in Arizona mining country, Hombre is the story of a stagecoach held up by outlaws. One of the passengers, John Russell, is a white man who was raised partly by Apache Indians, and knows first hand the indignities suffered by them at the hands of the whites who control the reservations. He has also learned to live and fight like an Apache. Combatting the outlaws, Russell finds himself faced with the decision of whether to save only himself or to save his fellow white passengers. John Russell becomes the key player in a drama examining man's responsibilities to his fellow man, acted out on a dusty stage in America's Wild West.
Customer Reviews:
Hard-boiled westerns.......2004-09-09
I knew Leonard only by reputation and the movie "Get Shorty". I thought I'd pick him up someday. Meanwhile, I started to read westerns, and picked up a few L'Amours. Louis is good. But a friend told me that Leonard wrote westerns before mystery/thrillers. Try him, he said. I did, first with Valdez is Coming, then with Hombre.
These two books are the best westerns I've read, and I'm reading the rest of Leonards. Stripped-down dialogue, steady action, and an atmosphere and voice that is totally captivating. The ending of Valdez is Coming is powerful and perfect, and I reread it several times. Hombre has great action and a strong moral message, but delivered sparely and without the sometimes windy sentimentality found in L'Amour. These two novels are very, very good indeed.
Leonard was great before he was cool.......1999-12-27
I picked this book up at San Francisco International Airport (which has a great bookstore in the United Airlines terminal) thinking I'd like to relax with a western. I have always loved Elmore Leonard's work, so it seemed like a fit to choose one by him instead of old Louis (another master). I've got to say Leonard HAS IT as a western writer. VALDEZ IS COMING is outstanding. The story is the kind I love: picks you up and takes you for a ride -- non-stop. I think what I liked best about this novel is that Valdez is such a great character, and that the story is absolutely relentless in its pacing. HOMBRE is great as well, also relentless, though I prefer the "voice" of VALDEZ over HOMBRE. So who knew that Leonard was not only THE master at dialogue, but also dynamite at characterization in a very literate western. Read it. You'll love it. I liked it so much that I just now ordered Western Roundup numbers 1 & 2. Thank you Elmore Leonard and thank you Amazon for making it so easy to be a discerning reader. Aloha!
Amazon.com
Escape from Five Shadows is another great Elmore Leonard prison-break novel set in the Old West, with Corey Bowen as an innocent man looking to escape from a work camp run by a sadistic embezzler willing to kill to keep his scheme running. As always with Leonard, there are no throwaway lines, and success comes to those who act with competence and conviction. In Last Stand at Saber River, a Confederate veteran returns to his Arizona homestead to find that Yankee mercenaries are occupying his home. That situation's bound to change, and not peacefully. In The Law at Randado, a young deputy must prove himself to a rich man who represents the legal authority in their community. These three short novels from the early stages of Leonard's career are like blueprints for the crime fiction he would come to master in the 1980s and '90s, and will prove a delightful surprise to any of his fans. If you don't think you like Westerns, read any of these stories and you may find yourself reconsidering your taste for the genre. --Ron Hogan
Book Description
Escape From Five Shadows: It was supposed to be impossible. No man could break out of the brutal convict labor camp at Five Shadows. Until they locked up Bowen. He was like dynamite--charged to go off, to explode out of that desert hell so he could clear his name. Already the deadly trackers have caught him, dragged him back through the mesquite and rocks, beat him and left him to rot in the punishment cell. But they can't stop Bowen. He's a different breed, a man who will go to any extreme to escape. Any extreme.
Last Stand at Saber River: A one-armed man stood before Denaman's store, and the girl named Luz was scared. Paul Cable could see that from the rise two hundred yards away, just as he could see that everything had changed while he was away fighting for the Confederacy. He just didn't know how much. Cable and his family rode down to Denaman's store and faced the one-armed man. Then they heard the story, about the Union Army and two brothers--and a beautiful woman--who had taken over Cable's spread and weren't going to give it back. For Paul Cable the war hadn't ended at all. Among the men at Saber River, some would be his enemies, some might have been his friends, but no one was going to take his future away--not with words, not with treachery, and not with guns
The Law at Randado: Kirby Frye was a local boy come home again--with a badge and a reputation in some circles. But to the men with money in Randado, Kirby Frye meant nothing. Twelve upstanding citizens, prompted by a hard-drinking, free-spending cattleman, hanged two of Kirby's prisoners behind his back. Then they laughed in his face. Frye was young, but he was no fool. He took their taunts, took their hired men's blows, and waited. For with a hotheaded sheriff from Tucson and a breed tracker on Kirby's side, it would be three men against many. And what they didn't know about Kirby Frye was that three against many was good enough for him--good enough to go up against their guns, good enough to bring the law back to Randado, and good enough to drive a rich man to his knees.
Customer Reviews:
A great Leonard Western.......2004-09-23
In the course of the last month, I've become a big fan of Elmore Leonard's Westerns. I'm new to the Western, late in the game. After a few L'Amour's, a friend put me on to Leonard. He's the very top of the genre, in my view. The dialogue and the action tell the story and make the points about toughness and character, not the sentimental interior thought process of the hero, so common in this genre; at least what I've seen thus far.
In The Law at Randado (one of the titles in this collection), Kirby Frye is young and green (as a deputy), but he stands up to the townsmen and Phil Sundeen, the bad cattle baron, much to their surprise. He reminds me a lot of the implacable Roberto Valdez in "Valdez is Coming" (I think Leonard's greatest Western), and there are similar qualities to the story. But this is early Leonard (1954), and he only gets better as time goes on.
We again meet the scoundrel Sundeen and see his fate in Gunsights, a much later book (1979).
It's going to be hard to go back to other Western authors having been introduced to Elmore Leonard this early on!
Western fiction may be out of style, but not Elmore Leonard........1998-09-21
Although the author has tended to underrate his earliest work in the Western genre, later Elmore Leonard crime novels like CITY PRIMEVAL, KILLSHOT (a corker, by the way) and OUT OF SIGHT are certainly influenced by earlier books such as VALDEZ IS COMING. He will often include references to the movie Westerns that were made from his stories in the novels. The famous restaurant confrontation between Chili Palmer and a stuntman-bodyguard in GET SHORTY imitates a similiar scene in the Leonard-written Clint Eastwood movie JOE KIDD (which Chili, a true movie buff, remembers vividly). The very funny novel PRONTO gets even funnier when you realize that Leonard is, to a great degree, satirizing traditional Western heroics and the conventions of a genre that he truly understands and loves. I can't imagine any fan of Elmore Leonard's - or the American Western - being disappointed in THE LAW AT RANDADO (my personal favorite), HOMBRE (which won the Golden Spur Award for the 100 best Western novels of all time) or VALDEZ IS COMING. It's great to have these books back in print in any form (as well as the new set of Western shorts THE TONTO WOMAN) and collectors should move fast - these tend to be taken out of print very quickly. Don't buy one - buy all three!!
Amazon.com
"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood." The quote is from Frank McCourt's memoir of growing up impoverished in Limerick, circa World War II. But the sentiment might just as easily have come from the fictional lips of Henry Smart, the hero of Roddy Doyle's remarkable novel of Dublin in the teens, A Star Called Henry. The son of a one-legged hit man, young Henry is the third child born but the first to live through infancy. He is also the second Henry--the first having died, and become a star in the mind of his mother.
She held me but she looked up at her twinkling boy. Poor me beside her, pale and red-eyed, held together by rashes and sores. A stomach crying to be filled, bare feet aching like an old, old man's. Me, a shocking substitute for the little Henry who'd been too good for this world, the Henry God had wanted for himself. Poor me.
Soon, his father has all but abandoned the growing family, and at 9 Henry is on his own, running wild in the streets, thieving to stay alive. Depressing as all this sounds, Doyle has invested his narrator with such an appetite for life, and rendered him so resolutely unsorry for himself, that it seems almost insulting to pity him.
By the time he is 14, Henry has become a soldier in the new Irish Republican Army and in one long and harrowing chapter, we view the events of the Easter Rising of 1916 from his position in the thick of it. It's not a pretty sight by any means, as the populace is divided in its support and various factions within the Republican Army threaten to splinter and annihilate one another before the British even get there. When the shooting starts, Henry aims not at the British but at the store windows across the street. "I shot and killed all that I had been denied, all the commerce and snobbery that had been mocking me and other hundreds of thousands behind glass and locks, all the injustice, unfairness and shoes--while the lads took chunks out of the military." Though the uprising is eventually crushed and the leaders executed, Henry escapes to live--and fight--another day.
In previous books such as The Barrytown Trilogy, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Doyle has established himself as one of the premiere chroniclers of modern Irish life. With A Star Called Henry, he works his singular magic on the past. What's more, this is only volume one of the Last Roundup, so it looks like we haven't seen the last of Henry Smart. And that's a very good thing, indeed. --Alix Wilber
Book Description
An historical novel like none before it, A Star Called Henry marks a new chapter in Booker Prize-winner Roddy Doyle's writing. It is a vastly more ambitious book than any he has previously written. A subversive look behind the legends of Irish republicanism, at its centre a passionate love story, this new novel is a triumphant work of fiction.
Born in the slums of Dublin in 1902, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he's out robbing, begging, charming, often cold, always hungry, but a prince of the streets. At fourteen, already six foot two, Henry's in the General Post Office on Easter Monday 1916, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army, fighting for freedom. A year later he's ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian, and, soon, a killer. With his father's wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a republican legend - one of Michael Collins' boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bike, a lover.
Customer Reviews:
A (Revolutionary) Star is Born.......2007-09-24
A wonderful journey into Ireland around the time of WWI and after: the author can make you taste, smell, hear, and, of course, see the place. I knew nothing about the nitty gritty of Ireland's problems politically, but now I have a great bird's eye view of the whole conflict. All of this while at the same time we see a real have-nothing Irish kid growing up to learn to hate the "enemy." As the book progresses, he finally comes to see himself as a dispensable tool of whoever he is working for...a truly sad awakening that puts the lie to those Revolutionary ideals. This story is so true to life that it shows us something of what Peggy Noonan wrote about in the Wall St. Journal yesterday: "They would grow up and assign their misery to outside forces. The boy humiliated because he's never sent to school with a clean shirt will turn that into 'Britain Get Out of Ireland.'....We often think it is large and abstract forces that drive history, when it is personal forces, too." The life of Henry Smart is a masterly illustration of this.
A Must For Researchers.......2007-05-18
As Continental forces and Virginia militia units were engaged in winning independence, American quartermasters and provisioners struggled to provide these units with all the necessities of life, from meals and guns to meat, fodder for horses, the horses themselves, firewood, and every other type of material. Much of this was requisitioned from the civilian population and certificates were issued payable in either continental or state funds, depending on the units supplied, upon presentation to court authorities. Thousands of these certificates issued to Virginians were duly entered by the courts, and they provide a fascinating insight into the period of the Revolution. These "Publick" Claims booklets contain interesting and useful information about the contributions of ordinary people to the Revolutionary War. They provide some details of people's service in the militia or as guards for prisoners of war; they indicate where some bodies of troops were at particular times; and they identify providers of horses, wagons, cattle, grain, or other supplies. Much of the information in these booklets cannot be found anywhere else, which makes the surviving records particularly valuable. Also remarkable is the fact that records survived from virtually every county in the state at that time with the exception of the newly formed Kentucky counties. This makes the collection even more valuable in covering areas which heretofore in this time period have suffered from a lack of personal data. The "Virginia Publick Claims" are published by counties. In addition to a faithful transcription by Janice Luck Abercrombie and the late Richard Slatten, a complete index is provided for each county booklet. This series is an extremely important genealogical tool for searchers in Revolutionary-era materials.
SO THAT'S WHY THEY FIGHT?.......2006-02-23
Henry Smart is a sorrowful figure. A robber, a beggar a doorman and destined to be caught up in the "struggle" as so many working class Irishmen and women are. Where else do they turn? Why do the English provoke them so? Answer these questions and you will answer the age old "Irish Problem" and end the hostilities once and for all.
Roddy Doyle takes us through the slums of early 1900's Dublin and asks the question Why? time and time again. At times the book makes me ashamed to be British and then I pinch myself and remember it's fiction. Or is it? It's the mark of a good fiction writer to make you think.
Roddy Doyle is the best Irish fiction writer alive today. Read him and weep!
Fast Paced, Readable.......2005-10-22
A STAR CALLED HENRY is the first novel I've read by Roddy Doyle, whom I'd never heard of, until I got this book as a gift. Doyle's style is crackling and attention-grabbing. It's certainly an easy book to get into, especially in the first part of the book, where we experience Henry's sorid childhood on the streets of Dublin. In many respects, the beginning is the most solid part of the novel; this is where nearly all of the characterization is done and Henry's humanity is front and center as he mourns for his mother, father, brother, and the life that he never had.
As the novel progresses, we witness Henry's involvment in the movement for a free Ireland. These passages are exciting, but not as moving as the earlier chapters. Some of the blame for this must be laid on my shoulders, as I know virtually nothing of Ireland's struggle for independence. Maybe someone more familiar with the history will be more easily drawn into the descriptions of guerilla warfare. Still, even as an ignorant American, I found myself wrapped up in the story. My only complaint is that Henry ceases to change much as a character after he reaches the age of 14. The idealism and violence of the period of "troubles" does little to alter his outlook, and he seems to possess an uncanny confidence that does not lend itself to much reflection. Henry is unrepentently selfish (not a criticism) and never seems to have a moment when he questions his actions. On the other hand, the novel's statement about the way revolutions shift power to the revolutionaries, and not to the people, is presented in a profound way.
A STAR CALLED HENRY is not a life-changing novel by any stretch of the imagination, but is certainly a cut above most fiction, and easily recommendable.
Excellent.......2005-09-18
A star called Henry was one of the best books i have read in the last few years. If you like Irish history you will love this book. Another excellent book i recommend is Tread Softly on My Dreams: The Robert Emmet Story, Gretta Curran Browne. You will surely love this book if you liked A star called Henry.
Book Description
Round up your apron, ring the dinner bell, and get ready for some rib-sticking grub that'll satisfy'til the cows come home. In RETRO RANCH, Dutch oven expert C.W. Welch presents more than 75 classic cowboy recipes to feed the crew from dawn to dusk. Even the slickest city slicker will feel at home, home on the range with these simple recipes for boot-scootin' breads and stews, six-shooter soups and sides, tasty taters, hearty cakes, and more. Featuring simple, easy-to-find ingredients, RETRO RANCH has you covered whether you're aiming to re-create campfire cooking in the kitchen or pack up your canteen for a backcountry trip. Vintage western images, ranch-hand lingo, and tips on how to use a Dutch oven are sure to bring out the inner chuck-wagon chef in everyone.
Customer Reviews:
Needs something more.......2007-09-12
When I first saw this book, I was excited by the idea of it. I wanted to have folks over for a cookout, and I thought this would help me create a theme menu for the party.
Unfortunately, the book suffers on two fronts. The first is that nearly every recipe requires a Dutch oven. I don't have a Dutch oven, and I definitely don't have more than one (which I would need if I was cooking a number of dishes for a large group). The second problem is that there are no pictures of food in this book. It really helps the decision-making process if you can see what the dish is supposed to look like when you're planning the menu.
A final note: This isn't really the book's problem, but I didn't see one recipe in the book that sounded at all appetizing. I am assuming that's a matter of taste, but given the "everyman" vibe I felt when I first examined the book, I thought there would be something in here for me.
Book Description
Winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award and the Academy of Western Artists' Buck Ramsey Best Cowboy Poetry Book Award, "The Big Roundup" is an anthology of the best Classic and Contemporary poetry from CowboyPoetry.com — the world's largest collection of Cowboy Poetry - featuring over 140 American, Canadian, English and Australian poets. A "Best of the West" appendix includes Cowboy Poetry gatherings and organizations, Western publications, and Western heritage and museum sites.
From its start on the range to its newest home on the internet, Cowboy Poetry celebrates three centuries as a genuine American folk form in "The Big Roundup."
In his foreword, Tom Mayo, poetry reviewer for the "Dallas Morning News" says "These selections illustrate and celebrate the diverse, vibrant state of Cowboy Poetry. That they were gathered in a most modern "virtual gathering" on the Internet [CowboyPoetry.com] is proof of the enduring popularity and relevance of the genre in this new millennium."
Customer Reviews:
Yee Ha.......2006-11-05
My first introduction to cowboy poetry and it is quite a ride. I recommend it highly as an addition to anyone's poetry library. It ranks right up there with the well-known classics. I especially enjoyed David Dague's "Backward R Double Bar D". His approach to raising grass fed beef doesn't preach but is handled with humor and subtlty.
"The Big Roundup" is a must read for anyone who is interested in the west or who simply appreciates and enjoys metered rhyme.
No Montana authors.......2006-02-23
I gave this book to my mother, who is a Montanan. She complained that there were no Montana authors represented in the book.
The best of the "poet lariats"..........2002-04-09
Round 'em up for the roundelay, pardners, cuz a whole herd of woolly versifiers is ridin' hard and shootin' straight in this rootin'-tootin' anthology that claims to have corralled "the best poems from the world's greatest collection of cowboy poetry." So fer as I kin tell, the PR writer ain't just pullin' yer chaps on that one. At 400+ pages, one has to wonder if this collection might not represent ALL the cowboy poetry in the world.
Anyways, if it's been a while since you've actually had fun with a thick book of poems, The Big Roundup will be a refreshing change of pace. Largely eschewing the modern urbanites' love of blank verse, the "poet lariats" featured in this volume show no fear of rounding up a rhyme or two -- and most of them adhere to meters that suggest that many of these verses have pulled double duty as songs. Try this stanza, for instance, from "The Western Home" by Brewster Higley et. al., 1873:
I love the wild flowers / In this bright land of ours, / I love, too, the wild curlew's scream / The bluffs and white rocks / And antelope flocks / That graze on the mountain so green.
If there's something strangely familiar about that rhythm, try singing it to the tune often applied to the same poem's most famous stanza -- the one that begins "Oh, give me a home / Where the buffalo roam. . . " That's just one of the entertaining discoveries you'll happen across in a volume that sings with the poetry of folks with names like French Camp Red, Buckshot Dot, Charley Sierra and Tex Tumbleweed. I reckon it goes without sayin' that this here collection is an absolute must for any red-blooded American library. -- P.MILLER for the FEARLESS REVIEWS
A grand and impressive collection of verse.......2002-02-11
The Big Roundup: Classic and Contemporary Poetry from CowboyPoetry.com is a grand and impressive collection of verse about the Old West. Single-paragraph biographies of the many and varied poets help flesh out this flavorful, soul-stirring collection of verse that speaks to the heart. The Big Roundup is an excellent gift idea for anyone who enjoys poetry about the American West, and a highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library poetry collections and reading lists. Home From The Winter Range: We gathered the winter range today,/and brought the cattle in./The old cows still were fat as hogs,/but the two year olds were thin./It's sixteen miles of downhill road,/and the cows all know the way./They're tired of eating slough-grass,/and looking forward to some hay.//A cattle drive in January,/aint generally so nice./But today the sun shone brightly,/on our world of snow and ice./An easy day for horse and man,/because, as all cowboys know,/it aint too hard to chase a cow,/some place she wants to go! Mike Puhallo
Average customer rating:
|
Toy Story 2 - Woody's Roundup: Giddy-Up Ghost Town - Book #2 (Woody's Round-Up, 2)
Rebecca Gomez
Manufacturer: Disney Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Action & Adventure
| Literature
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Popular Culture
| Literature
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Mysteries, Espionage, & Detectives
| Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror
| Literature
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Spine-Chilling Horror
| Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror
| Literature
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Ages 4-8
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Wild West
| Obsessions
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Woody's Roundup
| Disney
| Popular Characters
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Toy Story 2 - Woody's Roundup: Fool's Gold - Book #4 (Woody's Round-Up, 4)
-
Toy Story 2 - Woody's Roundup: Ride'Em Rodeo! - Book #3 (Woody's Round-Up, 3)
-
Toy Story 2 - Woody's Roundup: Showdown at the Okeydokey Corral - Book #1 (Woody's Round-Up, 1)
-
Toy Story 2 - Woody's Roundup: Bullseye Express - Book #5 (Woody's Roundup, 5)
-
Toy Story 2 - Woody's Roundup: Horsefeathers! - Book #6 (Woody's Roundup, 6)
ASIN: 0786844434 |
Amazon.com
Robert Benchley's wit appears effortless--it is a blend of autobiography, satire, the inconsequential, and the sudden surprise. At the start of "Fall In!" he muses, "It may be because I do not run as fast, or as often, as I used to, but I seem to be way behind on my parades. It must be almost a year since I saw one, and then I was in it myself." At one time Benchley was everywhere, a prolific reviewer and ubiquitous actor and screenwriter; now we must be grateful for his son's selection of humorous sketches. The Algonquian witster remains as brilliantly nonplused as ever as he observes his species in all its skewed play--from football's confusions to the folly of footnoters to French for Americans. When Benchley declared, "The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him," he can surely not have been looking to himself. James Thurber's remark seems truer: "One of the greatest fears of the humorous writer is that he has spent three weeks writing something done faster and better by Benchley in 1919."
Book Description
Robert C. Benchley's sketches and articles, published in periodicals like Life, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, earned him a reputation as one of the sharpest humorists of his time; his influence—on contemporaries such as E. B. White, James Thurber, and S. J. Perelman, or followers like Woody Allen, Steve Martin, and Richard Pryor—has left an indelible mark on the American comic tradition. The Benchley Roundup collects those pieces, selected by Benchley's son Nathaniel, "which seem to stand up best over the years"-a compendium of the most endearing and enduring work from one of America's funniest and most penetrating wits.
"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by then I was too famous."
—Robert Benchley
Customer Reviews:
"Immergluck Never Marries".......2005-12-13
Whether providing program notes for you to read while the Mezzo changes her mantilla (and she always has more mantillas than songs), providing a cut-and-paste for Dreiser's next American Tragedy (complete with maps, recipes, and court transcripts), or simply describing The Wreck of The Sunday Paper, Robert Benchley proved that comedy could be witty, sophisticated, and yet completely unpretentious. His scale was Seinfeldian, but far from being the eminently hittable Suburban Snot, Benchely admits to being as confused about the deritus of daily life as the rest of us. And like the rest of us, he finds it amazing that we make it from one day to the next with our lives, and even some shreds of our dignity, intact. He likes opera music, but knows that the plots are wild, trashy, and more than a bit ridiculous. He knows that travelling with kids is a contact sport that only the hardy survive (the hardy usually being the kids themselves), and that Christmas dinner with the extended family is something very pleasant in the abstract but a trial by fire in practice. And he has a sharp eye out for go-getters, lecturers on health and sex, and the pretentious of any sort, all of whom make life even more annoying than it already is. A few of the period details may strike you as quaint, but at heart, this is still very contemporary comedy. And very funny.
One of the great humorists of all time.......2005-02-24
This is such a delight: a master of humor takes us on a romp through his life. Think of James Thurber, O. Henry, and the more modern David Sadaris and W. Bruce Cameron. Rich, full, delightful humor, all based on the human condition. This is a collection of essays that is absolutely timeless, as funny now as when they were originally written.
A must read for all serious humorists.......2004-07-06
If you could judge a book by it's cover, you would assume that this book went out of print around about 1964. This is really too bad, because when you try to resell it on Amazon or eBay it will really reduce the price you can ask for it.
Robert Benchley, who died in 1945, wielded an extremely dangerous sense of humor that tragically took the lives of many of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, there is no disputing that his work has influenced so many American humorists that it's not even funny.
From Woody Allen, Dave Barry, Steve Martin, Regis Philbin and many others to an unknown reviewer like me who is trying desperately to be funny, there is really no comparison.
A genuinely great American humorist.......2000-09-09
I only found out about Benchley from a short book on Algonquin Round table quotes but I'm very thankful for it--it's shameful that Benchley has basically been forgotten. Why on earth should such a gifted, briliant comic writer be so little known nowadays? There's simply no reason I can think of. He's just as good as Perelman or Thurber, and he deserves much wider reading. This anthology is a pretty good collection of his work, featuring most of his more popular and beloved pieces. What one notices about Benchley is that he really isn't quite so gentle and affectionate in his humor as those who remember him say--he was the original master of what he termed the "dementia praecox" (crazy written humor basically)and when he applies this to ordinary life or parodies bad writing he can be quite cutting. His style is just about perfect--simple but carefully constructed to wring every laugh it can out of subtleties of phrasing and syntax. His parodies of academic writing are among the greatest ever, effortlessly exposing the bad ideas, pretension and willful obfuscation that lurk beyond so many professors' works. His humor is that of a good natured man so bewildered with the modern world that he defends himself with humor, and depending upon the situation that humor can be quietly observant or fast and crazy, therefore reducing its target to nonsense as well. This book needs to be re-printed with a beter cover, and it wouldn't hurt to add more stories to make it a definitive overview of the man's work. Having done so, the book should be aggresively marketed so that it ends up in the humor section of every bookshop in the land. It's the least Benchley, one our greatest American comic writers, deserves.
Wonderful writer, so don't buy this book........1999-08-29
I love Benchley's work. I began reading "My Ten Years in a Quandary..." as a child at the cottage nearly forty years ago. I can still read that tattered book and enjoy it immensely. I am less thrilled by this compilation--can't always agree with Nathaniel Benchley's choices and miss some of Gluyas Williams sketches that have been dropped. Get one of the original collections--starting with, if you want, "My Ten Years..." and then, when you decide that you want everything the man ever wrote, you won't be buying stories you already have.
Book Description
Soon the torch will be passed to a new generation.
But not just yet...
Having saved the Federation one more time in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country®, Capt. James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise™ have finally gone their separate ways. Spock, McCoy, Sulu, and the others are spread out across the galaxy, pursuing their individual destinies -- until an interstellar crisis touches all their lives.
Bored with retirement and ill-suited to teaching at Starfleet Academy, Kirk jumps at the chance to help his nephews colonize an uninhabited planet in a distant corner of the Alpha Quadrant. He even manages to persuade Scotty and Chekhov to come along for the ride.
But Kirk soon discovers that the hardy human colonists are not alone on the planet they call Sanctuary. An alien race, of whom little is known, has also establish an outpost on Sanctuary for its own mysterious reasons. Suspicious, Kirk investigates, only to discover a terrifying threat that strikes at the security of the entire Federation.
Light-years from Strafleet Command, without a ship or a crew to call his own, Kirk thinks he faces the menace alone. yet the bonds of loyalty transcend even the awesome distances of space, bringing together a legendary crew for one final, fantastic adventure.
Customer Reviews:
Good considering the recent Star Trek books .......2004-08-08
Bored with his new life of teaching classes at Starfleet James Kirk signs on with his brothers children to start a new life on a colony world. Strange i've been following Trek books for some time and this is the first mention I have heard of these guys Julius and Alexander. I hope it is not the last they should prove worthy additions t the universe.
The plot is preety standard they get to planet and find out that things are not all as they seem. Which is just as well because if they got to the place and nothing happened it would make for a very dull Star Trek book. The only thing that hurts the book is that the main conflict is wrapped up so easily.
Overall-My small critisms do not mean that the book is not fun to read I polished it off in an afternoon it was also nice to see the Orion Syndcate they are probably my most favorite component of life in the Star Trek universe proves that there are still people in space that don't buy the federations high minded ideals.
A good story, well-written........2004-03-12
Set in the aftermath of "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", this is an adventure that deals with the crew of the Enterprise as aging, post-Enterprise members of Starfleet, mostly going their own separate ways. If that, and a lot of complaints about aging, aren't your cup of tea, then there is a definite downside to this book. But it IS handled well, so you may find it to be more interesting than you would think even if the idea DOES sound dull.
Furthermore, this is one of those "Kirk & co. save the Federation and civilization as we know it" storylines, but it's handled better than I've ever seen the idea handled before. Most of the threats of that magnitude seem contrived, and the idea that our heroes can stem the tide even more so. But in this story, the threat seemed VERY plausible, and given the nature of it, the solution seemed equally plausible.
One of the best original series "Trek" books I've read in quite a while.
Good Final Bridge to Generations.......2003-12-25
I own this book. It was good but the trio of Spock, McCoy, and Kirk doing their things together as only they can do is lacking, and thats a bummer. The idea of the book was good though I think that the ending was somewhat of a let down. It was a little too easy to stop the destruction of warp drive engines. All in all it was enjoyable read, and if you're interested in Star Trek novels of the orignal series, this is a very good one to get the closure from the series that started it all.
Fairly predictable - Isn't a full "Original Crew" story.......2003-10-01
I was home visiting family recently, and when I left, I borrowed this book from my brother for the flight home. It's 280 or so pages, and I read the entire thing waiting for my plane in the terminal, and for about the first 45 minutes of the flight. I flew through it pretty good, and I don't know if that's because the book is good, or I was bored.
The book was pretty decent - I generally tend to get suckered in by books that proport to tell a story of a single event in an already existing universe that we don't get to see on screen. In this case, it's the "final adventure of the original crew". Which is an odd phrase for the book, because the bulk of the story has Kirk, Chekov, & Scotty in it. The remainder of the original crew is barely there, and only superficially involved with the main plot of the story. We do get Kirk's two nephews from his barely mentioned brother. This story takes place right before the events of movie #7, "Star Trek Generations". There's a lot of characters in it that play a MAJOR part in the story, but are new characters. This almost reads like a fan story - "Hey, let's put me in the story at the expense of some other character(s)". It's not quite like that, but I've read enough of those kinds of stories in the past, that this somewhat feels that way. I suppose it's just a grip at seeing McCoy, Uhura, Spock, and Sulu relegated to backgrond status when this was billed as an original crew adventure.
That said, the book was enjoyable, if a bit predictable. Definitely a bunch of "I'm old - I'm useless" stuff from Kirk, which seemed to be a theme of the latter original crew adventures. Still, it was a good read - I can't say it's my most recommended book, but I did enjoy it. I also felt that the main villian of the story "gave up" a bit too quickly, and the reason he was coerced into giving up was well.. never explained, so it felt really rushed and cheap to me.
I'm glad I borrowed the book from my brother instead of buying it - you might want to see if your library has a copy of it to borrow it from them. If you're a Star Trek fan, it's probably worth a read, but I would have felt ripped off if I actually paid full price for the book.
Bringing the cows in to pasture.......2003-08-18
The Last Roundup is a Star Trek tale of Captain Kirk's final adventure before the events of Star Trek: Generations. This being the final adventure, there are a lot of "I feel old" moments from Kirk, as well as a few of the other characters. There are discussions of age and how things must finally be handed over to a new generation. It's also quite a nice book, though it's very light without a lot of substance.
First of all, I will say that this isn't necessarily the "final adventure" for Captain Kirk, and it certainly isn't for the rest of the crew, who pop up in various books that take place after Generations. The reason it's not Kirk's is because, while the epilogue takes place just as Kirk is getting ready to go inspect Enterprise-B, it takes place months after the end of the story, so there is definitely room for more. Not that I think there should be, of course.
Now, as for the book itself, it should make any Trek fan happy. It's a thoroughly competent, enjoyable story. There's just not a lot of meat to it. It's pretty short with a large typeface, so it's a quick read, and I certainly wouldn't pay hardcover prices for it. If you're looking for depth, go elsewhere. If you're looking for yet another adventure with some of your favourite characters, then this would be a good pickup at the library or in paperback.
My first complaint about it is that the original crew doesn't figure in it very much, with the exception of Scotty and Chekov. That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course, as some of the better Trek books have involved only a few of the characters. The problem is that they are featured in quite a few scenes, so why not make them a bigger part of the story? As it is, they take up space that could have furthered the story elsewhere. Uhura and McCoy are especially given short shrift. They are helping Spock with the Klingon peace negotiations that resulted from the events in the movie Star Trek VI. A number of scenes of these cultural and medical exchanges happen at the beginning of the book, but that's the extent of their contribution. Sure, they go along for the ride with Spock after Kirk is reported missing, but they don't actually do anything. They're background material, and they deserve better than that in their supposed "final adventure." Sulu is given just as short shrift, but he does get a couple of juicy scenes that also set the stage for future Sulu novels if Pocket Books is so inclined. He's characterized very well, overall.
Not only are some of our favourite crewmembers sidelined, but their stories introduce more superfluous characters that clutter the book. The Klingon opera singer is just filler, giving Uhura somebody to play off of (which, since Uhura doesn't do much involved with the story, seems even more needless). The Klingons are only in the book to get Spock and the rest involved. They don't do much but talk, fire a few weapons, and act as ferries for our heroes.
The story, what is left of it, is actually pretty good. Kirk is feeling his age, and he's feeling useless. He doesn't want to be stuck in a classroom, but there's nothing else active for him to do. He wants to be in Starfleet, even if it only needs him as a teacher of the young. The dynamics of Kirk's story are well done, with Kirk being involved just enough to make him the obvious hero of the story, but enough happens despite his actions or before he can intervene that he is shown that maybe it is time to stop pining for another starship. He realizes that he has a new role in life, and that he must embrace it. I thought Kirk's thought processes through this entire book were wonderful and Golden is to be commended for creating a story where Kirk has to deal with this without wallowing. As a caveat to my point about McCoy above, he does figure very prominently in Kirk's conclusions, and the final talk between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy is a wonderful tribute to the friendship these three share. As a Trek fan, I was moved by this scene, and it made the book worth finishing.
None of the other characters are very interesting, though they do serve their parts well. Skalli, a cadet who becomes very attached to Kirk and serves as an illustration of what Kirk's reputation can do, is the most well-rounded. Some have complained that she bounces back and forth between overly emotional and enormously competent, but I think Golden pulled off the difference. I think readers who feel that way missed the point. Like Kirk, they just saw the hysterical, annoying character, not realizing that it's perfectly possible for that sort of person to be skilled. I did find her annoying at first, but I warmed to her after a bit. There's also a female admiral who Kirk is friends with, and while there is a bit of sexual tension, it's obvious they're just good friends. I'm glad Golden was able to avoid that cliché.
If you're a Trek fan, you'll probably enjoy this story. It's not ground-breaking, but it is pleasant. Just don't buy the hardcover. The story's not meaty enough to support it. Check it out, or pick up the paperback. It'll still be there when you're ready for it.
David Roy
Books:
- Ethnicity and Family Therapy, Third Edition
- German Home Towns: Community, State, and General Estate 1648-1871
- Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man
- High Profile
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Marketing Channels
- Biological Science, Volume 3: How Plants and Animals Work
- Southern Service on Land and Sea: The Wartime Journal of Robert Watson, Csa/Csn
- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming
- The Song of Hannah : A Novel
- Black Rose: In the Garden Trilogy
- 70 Common Cacti of the Southwest
- Psychometric Testing: 1000 Ways to assess your personality, creativity, intelligence and lateral thi
- The Italian Ecotourism Market: Special Report #13
- Three by Flannery O'Connor
Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #2: Escape from Five Shadows, Last Stand at Saber River, and the Law at Randado (Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup)
Forty Lashes Less One
The Complete Western Stories Of Elmore Leonard
The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories
The Hot Kid : A Novel
