North American Road Atlas 2011 Atlas

Fully modified for 2011, the AAA Road Atlas features bettered readability with crisp new colors, further and added maps for Canada and modified symbols for key points of interest. The atlas offers comprehensive coverage of the United States, Canada and Mexico, with more indexed cities and towns than any other road atlas available. Specialty maps help navigate the back roads of galore of the most frequent national parks and tourist areas.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #649463 in Books
• Published on: 2010-09-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Where have the roads gone?
By back roads traveler
We’ve relied on AAA atlases for years for their detail and accuracy. Needing to update our 2008 version for a four-week meander from MA to CA, I bought the 2011 AAA atlas from Amazon. What the….? A quarter or so of the roads and towns are gone! Seriously: it seems AAA has decided that county roads–and the towns on them–are no longer of interest to the traveling public, and they are simply…gone. I guess, on one hand, that most travelers (a) use some form of GPS these days and (b) stick to the interstates (poor souls). I gotta snark, on the other hand, that this is sure a cheaper way to research and publish an atlas. But this book of half maps is of no use to us, and I’m on the search for the real thing, published by someone else.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
This is the Road Atlas you want.
By Tom in Sierra Madre
I had an old 2004 AAA Road Atlas which I found truly helpful. My wife and I are planning an extensive road trip. We wanted an updated road atlas. Not paying enough attention, I purchased the Rand McNally atlas by mistake and was disappointed. I took note of the maker of my old 2004 atlas. It was the AAA atlas. I puchased the 2011 AAA Road Atlas and I am very happy with its maps and method of presentation.

The 2011 AAA Road Atlas maps are clearly presented on white paper. The printing is clear and readible. I am interested in the details it includes. It is not cluttered with stuff I don’t care about.

This is the road atlas I want and I believe that this is the road atlas you would want, as well.

By the way, for our road trip, I purchased the 2011 edition of “The Next Exit”. This book will help us find what we need while we are on the interstate. If you are planning a road trip, look up this book, you may find it useful.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
AAA Road Atlas – in one volume
By Raymond Gustavson, author of A Thirst for War
I looked at several types of road atlases before deciding on this one. I had almost decided to buy the Large Type edition when I read a review stating that some of the city maps went on for two, three, or more pages, thus making the Atlas hard to follow.

This AAA Road Atlas is the regular print edition. As such all states or cities are one one page which, of course, has its drawback: the print is much smaller and thus harder to read. To remedy this situation I simply use the Atlas to plot out Interstate highways along my proposed route of travel. A quick look and I can tell which route is shorter or more congested with city traffic.

All in all, the Atlas was a good buy because it eliminated having a gaggle of state maps cluttering up the car. For in-city navigation to specific addresses, I use a GPS.

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North American Road Atlas 2011 Atlas Picture

North American Road Atlas 2011 Atlas Picture

North American Road Atlas 2011 Atlas Pic

North American Road Atlas 2011 Atlas Photo

North American Road Atlas 2011 Atlas Picture

North American Road Atlas 2011 Atlas Pic

Lonely Planet Chile Easter Island

Discover Chile and Easter Island. Includes FREE planning and background information. Pounding westerlies, barren seascapes and the ragged spires of Torres del Paine define the rugged provinces of Magallanes and Última Esperanza. For many, these landscapes represent the distilled essence of Patagonia, matched only in frontier appeal by the deep Amazon and a few stretchings of Alaska. Southern Patagonia is idealisti for adventure and travelers will find a great deal while taking in the cool panoramas of national parks, islands colonized by penguins, and the remote ranches with hard-livin’ gauchos.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #168789 in eBooks
• Published on: 2009-02-01
• Released on: 2009-02-01
• Format: Kindle eBook
• Number of items: 1

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Lonely Planet Chile Easter Island Pic

Lonely Planet Chile Easter Island Photo

Lonely Planet Chile Easter Island Photo

Lonely Planet Chile Easter Island Photo

Lonely Planet Chile Easter Island Image

Lonely Planet Chile Easter Island Pic

Fodors Barcelona 3rd Edition With

Fodor’s Barcelona
PLAN YOUR PERFECT TRIP

Full-color guide • Make your trip to Barcelona unforgettable with maps, illustrated features, and color photos.
Customize your trip with simple planning tools • Convenient overview of each region/island/neighborhood and it is spotlight • Best bets for local dining • Easy-to-read color neighborhood maps
Explore the Sagrada Família, the Boqueria market, Park Güell, and beyond • Discerning Fodor’s Choice picks for hotels, restaurants, sights, and more • “Word of Mouth” tips from fellow Fodor’s travelers • Illustrated features on the Gaudí’s sites, Spanish wines, and Spain’s feed revolution • Best tapas touring, museum hopping, and beachcombing • Tips for making the most of your euros
Opinions from destination experts • Fodor’s Barcelona-based writers disclose their favored local haunts • Frequently modified to provide the latest information

“Fodor’s has emerged…as our fave guidebook series for insider tips when it comes to things you actually want to know.” – Miami Herald

“Hipped up…with colorful maps and graphics, plus counsel on a broader range of attractions, from classic to quirky.” – Outside Magazine

Fodors.com
Find great deals, book a trip, and percentage your travel tales

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24521 in Books
• Published on: 2010-06-22
• Released on: 2010-06-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.16 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Reasonable intro, but too introductory and hard to parse listings
By Omar Siddique
I read through this guide with an eye to returning to Barcelona, which I last visited in 2002. I found it a good survey, but absent an angle on how to get into the city’s vibrant culture (the nightlife and culinary scenes get short shrift), with too many dense detailed listings of hotels and restaurants.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Nice pre-trip information; not so useful in details
By Mainiac
[Since Amazon sometimes confounds these things with travel books, let me confirm that this is the 3rd edition of Fodor's Barcelona with Highlights of Catalonia and Bilbao.]

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Fodors Barcelona 3rd Edition With Pic

Fodors Barcelona 3rd Edition With Image

Fodors Barcelona 3rd Edition With Pic

Fodors Barcelona 3rd Edition With Photo

Fodors Barcelona 3rd Edition With Photo

Fodors Barcelona 3rd Edition With Photo

Bodyweight exercises for women are an effective tool to build strength and lower the body fat.

It may be done anytime, anyplace and without any imagination instrumentation – which makes it a great time saving way to build strength and fitness.

And it gets rid of any excuses for not training.

Here are 5 bodyweight exercises for women -

1) Reverse Crunch – knees bent, hands placed besides your hips flat on the floor, fetch your knees towards your chin while exhaling. Your hips ought to come off the floor and tardily lower your feet to just above floor level. Do 15-20 reps.

2) Side (Plank) Bridge – lie on your side so that your body is rigid and straight. The only contact points on the floor are your forearm and the near side of your foot. Do 20-30 seconds.

3) Front Bridge – Lie face down so that your body is rigid and straight, the only contact points on the floor are both forearms and both sets of toes. Do 20-30 seconds.

4) Split Jump – Stand in a lunge position with one leg among half to a meter in front of the other, arms at your sides. Bend at the knees until your back leg almost touches the floor, then swing your arms forward and jump as high as you can. While in the air, switch leg positions so that you may land softly with the other leg in front. Repeat for 8 to 12 reps.

5) Push-ups; or if you are a beginner try the kneeling push-up (push up position but with your knees on the floor)

Bodyweight exercises for women may be adjusted as the fitness level improves.

As your body fat decreases and strength improves, adjust the exercises to make it more challenging.

For example, you may alter the kneeling push-up to the same push-up from your toes. Or if you want to make it more difficult, why not adjust the position of your hands to without disturbance advance your muscle strength.

Other number of things from which only one can be chosen to make it more challenging is to increase the intensity like varying the repetitions, sets and shorten the rest amount of time amongst each sets.

Best yet, why not do 10 push-ups followed without delay by 10 split jumps. Then rest for 60 seconds, and repeat again.

The aim here is to increase the intensity by alternating amongst an upper body exercise and a lower body exercises for more outstanding impact.

Therefore, the higher the intensity, the better the metabolic affect you will have on your body.

If you want more fat burning exercises, try Turbulence Training – which is a combining of the best bodyweight exercises for women and interval training.

Regardless what you are training for, bodyweight exercises are very effective to burn body fat – either as an addition to your regular workout or even as a workout all by itself.

Bodyweight exercises for women isn’t just supplying you with a new and stimulating way to workout – it’s taking your health to a new level.

This Burning Land Lessons From The Front

A profoundly dissimilar way of looking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Reporting from Jerusalem for The New York Times and Fox News respectively, Greg Myre and Jennifer Griffin, witnessed a decades-old conflict transformed into a exclusively new war. The West has learned a lot when it comes to asymmetrical war in the past decade. At the same time, a great deal of experts in strategy have missed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become one of them. This book shows the importance of applying these hard-won lessons to the longest running, most almost watched occupation and uprising in the world.

The entire conflict may seem irrational — and a lot of commentators see it that way. While raising their own family in Jerusalem at the height of the violence, Myre and Griffin look at the lives of persons caught up in the struggles to disclose how these actions make perfective sense to the participants. Extremism may become a virtue; moderation a vice. Factions fabricate within factions. Propaganda becomes an essential weapon, and continuing or repeating behavior an necessary defense. While the Israelis and the Palestinians have failed to achieve their goals after years of fighting, humans on both sides are prepared to make continued sacrifices in the faith that they will in the long run emerge triumphant.

• This book goes straight to the heart of the conflict: into the minds of suicide bombers and inside Israeli tanks. We listen from Palestinian informants who help the Israeli military track down and kill Palestinian militants. Israeli settlers in detached outposts explain why they are there, and we listen the foilings of a Palestinian farmer who has had his olive grove cut in half by Israel’s security barrier
• Shows the crucial lessons that may be learned by looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example of modern, asymmetrical war
• Authored by long-time reporters on the Middle East, the book provides a balanced and elaborated look at the fighting based on first-hand experience and hundreds of interviews
• Explains how the landscape of the conflict changed and why the established approach to peacemaking is no longer valid

With a new perspective on what’s actually going on in Israel and the Palestinian territories, The Familiar War is a book that will inform the debate on the Middle East and the future of the peace process, as well as our understanding of other conflicts around the world.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55005 in Books
• Published on: 2011-03-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.60″ h x 1.16″ w x 6.40″ l, 1.27 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From the Inside Flap No other conflict in the world has dragged on longer, engendered more bitterness or defied more attempts at solution than the battle amid the Israelis and the Palestinians. Over the past decade, Greg Myre covered this conflict for the New York Times, and his wife Jennifer Griffin covered it for Fox News, and they arrived at the same surprising conclusion: the conflict can not be solved anytime soon. In This Burning Land, they address a rudimentary paradox. Israel is more inviolable than it has been at any time in it is history; it has a vibrant society, a thriving economy, and a powerful military that suppressed the most recent Palestinian uprising. Yet, it cannot find a way to end the feud with the Palestinians. In turn, the entire world supports the Palestinian goal of statehood, and yet no such state is likely to emerge any time soon. Arriving in Jerusalem shortly before the onset of the Palestinian uprising in 2000, Myre and Griffin soon found themselves reporting not on a new peace deal, but on the worst violence in the long history of this feud. They show how the conflict has changed dramatically in recent years as new physical and psychological barriers have gone up amid the two sides. The couple takes us to the heart of the conflict, where few writers have gone before. They delve into the thinking that motivates numerous Palestinians to be suicide bombers and other Palestinians to work as informants for Israel’s security forces. Myre and Griffin travel to isolated West Bank outposts where Israeli settlers vow never to relinquish the land, and accompany Israeli troops as they stage midnight raids in militant strongholds. Having likewise expended two decades chasing wars throughout Africa, Asia, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East, the writers are students of modern, asymmetrical warfare that has become the norm in today’s conflicts. They draw on this experience to offer lessons important to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian fighting, and other wars as well. To quote a few: Clear, decisive military victories belong to an earlier era, yet constituents on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have a stake in keeping the conflict going rather than negotiating a solution. Controlling the public relations battle is often as essential as the actual fighting, and the competing Israeli and Palestinian messages that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events proceed to diverge in societies that are ever more segregated from one another. Actions that seem completely irrational to outsiders ofttimes make perfective sense to the participants. Extremism may become a virtue; moderation a vice. Despite the heavy suffering on both sides, numerous Israelis and Palestinians are prepared to make continued sacrifices in the faith they will at last triumph. Myre and Griffin demonstrate an anthropologist’s feel for the concealed sides of Palestinian and Israeli culture, a historian’s understanding of the more spectacular forces at work, and a novelist’s ear for telling the stories that fetch it all together. The broader lessons in This Burning Land will support inform the debate in the Middle East for years to come. From the Back Cover “A stunning piece of nonfiction when it comes to the tortured and heartbreaking stalemate in the Middle East. This is a brilliant book—superbly written and devastatingly insightful. The fact that they raised two little girls while reporting this story makes each explosion, each riot, each checkpoint peculiarly upsetting. I don’t know how they did it.”—Sebastian Junger, author of War “Myre and Griffin have written an extraordinary story—personal yet hard-hitting—that takes you inside the world of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the hopes and fears that drive it. There are no punches pulled here. A must-read for any person who alternatively chooses Middle East reality over fantasy.”—Aaron David Miller, author of The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace “This Burning Land is what you get when you unleash two splendid reporters on one of the world’s most compelling stories. With eloquence, insight, and a real sense of urgency, Greg Myre and Jennifer Griffin fetch to life places like Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip for the duration of a time of siege and chaos. Even if you disagree with their conclusions, you will be swept up in their story of disaster and hope.”—Jeffrey Goldberg, author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror “Superbly written and devastatingly insightful.” –Sebastian Junger, author of War About the AuthorGREG MYRE, formerly a correspondent for the New York Times, is a Senior Editor at National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. JENNIFER GRIFFIN is the national security correspondent for Fox News. Myre and Griffin have reported from wars throughout the world and expended almost eight years covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
Incredible book
By Janet Goetz
This Burning Land is, quite simply, a great book. It manages to be incredibly engaging and entertaining while, at the same time, it offers a perspective and understanding missing from other books on the subject. Greg Myre and Jennifer Myre, married seasoned journalists, spent almost 8 years living in and reporting from Israel, beginning in 1999. They covered every major event involving Israel and the Palestinians during those violent and turbulent years and, by interweaving personal anecdotes and reflective analysis, their book provides invaluable insight into the rational and irrational thinking of all interested parties. Though the book discusses the major Israeli and Palestinian political leaders and organizations, it is perhaps strongest when it allows the reader to get to know many of the less powerful Israeli and Palestinian participants. Myre and Griffin spent significant time in Gaza, and their anecdotes about many of the Gazan families they got to know are haunting and illuminating. The book offers rare glimpses inside the mentalities of the suicide bombers and their families, and the accounts of the hideous bloodshed and carnage they left behind are difficult to forget.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
Compelling, Real and Very Important
By Jill K. Melton
Not ever having visited Israel, “This Burning Land” has opened my eyes, ears, and heart to know, feel, and sense the conflict that never ends. A serious book, it held my attention, actually gripped me, as the reporters relentlessly followed death and turmoil and expose it in wonderful detail.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
A little dry, but worth reading.
By justanother
If you’re looking for on-the-ground insight into the Isreal-Palestinian mess, then you’ve found it in this book.

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This Burning Land Lessons From The Front Pic

This Burning Land Lessons From The Front Photo

This Burning Land Lessons From The Front Pic

This Burning Land Lessons From The Front Image

This Burning Land Lessons From The Front Photo

This Burning Land Lessons From The Front Pic

This guide holds commended books for young adults amidst the ages of 13 and 21. The goals of this guide is to give hope or courage to young people to read. Young adult don’t genuinely hate to read, they just say, “I don’t like reading”, “this book is so boring”, they just haven’t found the right book to read, this recommendations beneath might give them a lot of new ideas in regards to what to read next. There are thousands of new books published for young adults each year we pick only the best one.

“Twilight (series)” by Stephenie Meyer

Author: Stephenie Meyer, Publisher: Little, Brown and Company 2005-2008, Language: English, Country: United States, Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Young-Adult Fiction

Review: Twilight is a very dramatic but stimulating love story among a regular, 17 year old, girl named Bella, and a gorgeous, closely 100 year old, vampire named Edward. Bella is forced to move into the little town of Forks, with her father Charlie. There wasn’t anything imagination in the town of Forks. It rains all the time, and the sun never seems to shine, this town has not one thing great, until Bella finds the Edward Cullen. Once Bella finds the Edward, she can’t keep thinking regarding them. I actually enjoyed seeing Bella and Edward going through the ups and downs of their relationship, the fact that Bella and Edward have a mutant baby together just freaks me out to no end and gives me nightmares that keep me up at night. I to the full or entire extent commend reading these books, receive pleasure from this touching story that will leave you wanting more as you read into their romantic love story. Series: 1. Twilight (2005) 2. New Moon (2006) 3. Eclipse (2007) 4. Breaking Dawn (2008)

Similar Books: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead, Tithe by Holly Black, Eragon & Eldest by Christopher Paolini.

“Wintergirls” by Laurie Halse Anderson

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson, Publisher: Viking, Pages: 278 pp (Hardback), Country: United States, Genre: Fiction

Review: Wintergirls is regarding an 18 year old anorexic girl named Lia dealing with anorexia nervosa. She wants to be thin, so thin that she disappears and her body is breaking down and dying because of it. The book begins with the death of Lia’s best friend (also suffering from an eating disorder) who dies in a motel room all by herself. Lia not only deals with her anorexia, but with a broken family and cutting problems. This was unquestionably another amazingly heart-wrenching book written by Anderson with regards to a painful topic that a lot of girls are going through each day. For all of those who have read Speak, please take a look at Wintergirls! this is one of the best Young Adults books I have read.

Similar Books: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.

“The Hunger Games (trilogy)” by Suzanne Collins

Author: Suzanne Collins, Publisher: Scholastic 2008-2010, Language: English, Country: United States, Genre: Adventure, Science fiction, Young adult

Review: The Hunger Games trilogy is a science fiction love story that takes place thousands of years in the future, where the United States is governed by one Capitol and disunited into thirteen districts, the story is in regards to a 16 year old girl Katniss Evergreen in a fantasy world called Panem (Latin for “bread”) and who is “chosen” to fight in a to-the-death battle with other children in other districts, the winner of the Game will return with feed for their district. The story is beautifully crafted and so unexpected. So a good deal of twists and turns that keeps your eyes glue to the pages. The firstborn book was awful it sets the story and fills us in on the history of Katniss Evergreen. The second book – has a twist in it that you don’t see coming. The whole momentum of the story got slowed right down in the third book, the last couple of chapters in book 3 “Mockingjay” had me shedding tears for sure but she at last gets her happiness. I always take pleasure in reading a book that forces the reader to think deeper than what is plainly on paper, and Suzanne Collins has mastered that with these books. The story is advertised as YA, but that doesn’t mean it’s suitable only for young adults.

Similar Books: The Maze Runner by James Dashner, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.

“The Giver” by Lois Lowry

Author: Lois Lowry, Publisher: Bantam Books – 1993, Pages: 179 p. (paperback edition), Country: United States Genre: Soft science fiction, Dystopian fiction

Review: The Giver is an special novel when it comes to every day life in a community with no feelings, color, war, or pain, everything is totally organized. This book is written from the perspective of Jonas who is an 11 year-old boy and the main reputation of this story. He lives with his father and seems to look and act dissimilar than the other persons in his community. Then all that changes for Jonas when he turns twelve and is chosen to receive all the memories that the society has never known, memories that will change his life forever. I loved The Giver because the plot was very creative, the theme was magnificent, and the setting was vivid, Lois Lowry applied outstanding descriptive words to fetch the book to life. It’s one of the best novels to portion with young people, a story that they will do not forget long after they have finished it.

Similar Books: Messenger by Lois Lowry, Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry.

“Harry Potter (series)” by J.K. Rowling

Author: J.K. Rowling, Published: 29 June 1997 – 21 July 2007, Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books (US), Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), Country: United Kingdom, Media type: Print (hardcover and paperback)

Review: J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series was a brilliant work of creative writing of recognized artisti value and fantastic for helping younger readers build their vocabulary and learn primary life lessons. For any person who hasn’t read the series and has just watched the movies, the books are a must read. For those of you who are anti Harry Potter I would like to point out numerous of the saving calibers of these books. First, Potter has good healthy, relationships with adults. Second, Potter has relatives and a professor who do not like him. He shows that not everyone in the world will like you but that is not a requisite to having a good life. The books give hope or courage to imagination and creativity. There are other reasons but I think that J.K. Rowling has reintroduced reading for pleasure to our young adults and that is a feat indeed. J.K. Rowlings has a fantastic imagination. Harry Potter has been translated in over 67 languages, and the last four books were the most immediate marketing books in history. I commend every one to read these books because they have something for everyone: fantasy and magic, action and adventure, monsters, romance and laughter, anybody at any age will take delight in this set. Harry Potter Series also in Best Fantasy Books of All Time Happy Reading to all.

Series:

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997)

2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)

5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)

6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007)

Similar Books: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak

Author: Markus Zusak, Publisher: Knopf, USA (March 14th 2006), Pages: 550 (Hardback & Paperback), Country: Australia, Genre: Novel

Review: “The Book Thief” is the story of Liesel a German girl living near Munich for the duration of the Nazi uprising. One walks through Germany in World War II, along with Liesel and her best friend. Liesel is a orphan because her mother and brother freeze to death. The other strange thing regarding the Book Thief is it is narrator, Death himself. Everyone in the whole world seems to adore this book, one that in truth touched me, and even made me cry more than once. Considering that the book is set in Nazi Germany, one may suppose to find a bit more brutality but it is lighter, it is at Young Adult reading level. This book has my most eminent recommendation if you like stories set for the duration of World War II, if you want to read regarding a girl with such strength and emotion that it’ll tear your heart out.

Similar Books: The Messenger by Markus Zusak, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne.

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series)” by Rick Riordan

Author: Rick Riordan, Publisher: Disney Hyperion 2005-2009, Language: English, Country: United States Genre: Fantasy, Young-adult fiction.

Review: If you like adventures then you will like this book. A fun, quick Young Adult read that adds adventure as well as galore history in regards to Greek mythology, an astounding series, particularly for somewhat competent, but perhaps reluctant, readers in 8th grade and up. The main reputation Percy Jackson 12-year-old teenage boy who sudden finds out his world is not what he thought it was and his life is all of a sudden full of magic, danger, and adventure. He is likewise being attacked by monsters out of Greek mythology. His mother brings him to Camp Half-Blood where he learns that he is the son of a god and a hero who has to go on a quest. I liked the idea of the Greek gods being located in the western hemisphere. I thought it was clever how Riordan integrated Greek gods into the innovative world in a very clever, fun way. Constant adventure and an easy to follow storyline keeps the attention of any individual and everyone that takes the time to sit down and open it, there is no pardon not to read this book because it is completely fabulous! Once you open it, it will keep you enticed all the way until the very back cover. It’s not just a best book for young adults but for everyone, even us “adults” who still take delight in the kid inside us.

Series:

1. The Lightning Thief – June 28, 2005

2. The Sea of Monsters – May 3, 2006

3. The Titan’s Curse – May 1, 2007

4. The Battle of the Labyrinth – May 16, 2008

5. The Last Olympian – June 12, 2009

Similar Books: Harry Potter Boxed Set by J.K. Rowling, Eragon, Eldest & Brisingr by Christopher Paolini.

“Hush, Hush” by Becca Fitzpatrick

Author: Becca Fitzpatrick, Publisher: Simon & Schuster – 2009, Pages: 391, Country: United States, Genre: Young adult, Fantasy, Romance

Review: Hush, Hush is the story written by Becca Fitzpatrick. It is written through the perspective of the main character, Nora Grey, an intermediate high school student going when it comes to her business as standard until her Biology teacher rearranges the class seating and places her next to the sexy, mysterious, dangerous-looking new kid, Patch Cipriano. who is revealed to be a fallen angel with a dark connection to Nora herself. However, the reasons that Nora isn’t the typical high school girl are many: she is independent, even at her age, because her mom travels a lot after her dad passed away. Her best friend Vee is obsessed with all the things Nora chooses to ignore – boys, shopping, and drama. The way the book was written was amazing. It never left you bored, or wanting to skip a few pages. I would in a rebellious manner commend this book to girls largely it’s a romance book and it doesn’t actually seem to appeal to boys. Once you open the pages, you will not be capable to put it down!

Similar Books: The Dark Divine by Bree Despain, Torment by Lauren Kate, Nightshade by Andrea Cremer.

“Vampire Academy (series)” by Richelle Mead

Author: Richelle Mead, Publisher: Razorbill, Language: English, Country: United States, Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy

Review: The storyline is in truth great, and Richelle Mead uses flashbacks of what has already occurred to keep you guessing and to support fill you in at the right moment without giving too much away. Vampire Academy tells the story of Rose a seventeen-year-old Dhampir girl, who is training to be a bodyguard for her Moroi (Moroi are mortal vampires and wield the earth’s magic elements fire, water, air, earth) best friend, Vasilisa “Lissa” Dragomir. In the procedure of learning how to defeat Strigoi (the evil undead vampires) in St. Vladimir’s Academy, Rose finds herself caught in a forbidden romance with her handsome instructor, Dimitri Belikov, while having an unbreakable bond with Lissa. The story was an overall good read, the main reputation is independent and funny, to be honorable it was better than twilight, while Bella is weak and dependent, Rose is the precise opposite, independent and strong. I loved looking at the characters grow and construct peculiarly Rose and Lissa. Throughout the series they mature so much and it is fabulously arousing and attention holding to watch. I will say that these books are for a more mature YA audience because there is mention of some more mature topics. I would unquestionably commend this series. It’s unquestionably my bestloved vampire series!

Vampire Academy series:

1. Vampire Academy (16 August 2007)

2. Frostbite (10 April 2008)

3. Shadow Kiss (13 November 2008)

4. Blood Promise (25 August 2009)

5. Spirit Bound (18 May 2010)

6. Last Sacrifice [9] (7December 2010)

Similar Books: Feast of Fools by Rachel Caine, Friday Night Bites by Chloe Neill, Chosen by P. C. Cast.

“Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson, Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (October 1999), Pages: 197 pp (first edition, hardback), Country: United States, Genre: Fiction

Review: Speak is a short novel packed full of vast emotions and that dealt with a tragic circumstance of 14 year old girl Melinda so realistically that it felt real. Melinda Sordino is an incoming freshman that called the police at an end of the summer party before high school started. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now not a single soul will talk to her. After that Melinda has been speaking less and less, to her parents and to the friends who have abandoned her because she called the cops for the duration of a summer party. Her parents commence to see that something is wrong. They want to aid their daughter but don’t know how to. This book is very well written from a teen’s perspective, you in truth get inside Melinda’s head in this book, you actually do feel Melinda’s pain, you just don’t recognise the reason behind it until the end of the book, it’s just unbelievable, how good the author is at doing this, the author does a spectacular occupation of capturing the essence of high school. Speak is a fantasti message of hope, with touches of black humor It’s a very dark story but it is still funny too. I commend this book to all young adults. Similar Books: Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

The Worlds Of Lois Lowry 3 Copy Boxed Set

When Jonas turns 12, he is singled out for particular training from The Giver. Now, it’s time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.
*
Kira, an orphan with a twisted leg, lives in a world where the weak are cast aside. When she is given a task that no other community fellow member may carry out, Kira soon realizes she is surrounded by a lot of mysteries and secrets–and an extraordinary power of her own.
*
Matty has always been proud to be Village’s Messenger. But now that Village is closing it is once-welcoming doors, Matty will have to make one last journeying through the treacherous forest, and must make a outstanding sacrifice to save the place he loves.
*
The Worlds of Lois Lowry are brought to life through three extraordinary characters, and the unexpected connections amid their lives.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15523 in Books
• Brand: Simon Pulse
• Published on: 2006-08-22
• Released on: 2006-08-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Dimensions: 8.15″ h x 2.00″ w x 5.50″ l, 1.66 pounds
• Binding: Paperback

About the AuthorLois Lowry is an award-winning author who has written a good deal of general books for young adults. She was twice the recipient of the Newbery Medal, for Number the Stars and for The Giver. The author lives in Cambridge, MA.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Great Trilogy
By M. Espinoza
This box-set is one of the most enduring trilogies I have ever read. The first book is an instant classic, The Giver. I actually read this book back in 1994, when I was in the 4th grade. I read it now again, and I am still just as enamored with it. I didn’t even know there were two other books that followed until I did some research. The next two books are just as good, and the best part is that are not carbon-copies. One could actually read them by themselves, but it’s so much better when you know the stories before them.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
“The Giver” is amazing
By Angel Delgado
The only book in this set that I loved was “The Giver”. The other two were ok if you really want to know what happens to Jonas, or if you want to know more about the world that Lois Lowry created. But honestly I’d rather have just read the first book and left the rest to my imagination. Gathering Blue was ok, a little drawn out and not very exciting. The messenger was more interesting then Gathering Blue. I feel that the fault of the two lies with my own expectations and the lack of wonder and the mystic of “The Giver”. After reading “The Giver” I was left with so many questions and a sense of awe. After reading the entire trilogy I was left underwhelmed and disappointed. In my opinion “The Giver” is a must read, the other two could be skipped.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Great boxed-set
By S. Rutter
I didn’t know before this year that _The Giver_ had two other books that were companion texts. I was excited to find them all three collected together in one attractive boxed-set. My students have been fighting all year to see who could borrow _Gathering Blue_ and _The Messenger_ next.

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The Worlds Of Lois Lowry 3 Copy Boxed Set Photo

The Worlds Of Lois Lowry 3 Copy Boxed Set Photo

The Worlds Of Lois Lowry 3 Copy Boxed Set Photo

The Worlds Of Lois Lowry 3 Copy Boxed Set Picture

The Worlds Of Lois Lowry 3 Copy Boxed Set Pic

The Worlds Of Lois Lowry 3 Copy Boxed Set Pic

Green Lantern Vol 1 No Fear

Green Lantern Hal Jordan has returned from the dead — but not every one is happy to see him back on the occupation as Earth’s protector.

As he re-establishes his life as a test pilot for the Air Force and reconnects with his super-hero comrades-in-arms, Green Lantern faces renewed threats from his rogues gallery of foes, including Hector Hammond, the Shark, Black Hand and the Manhunters.

This volume likewise includes a beautifully illustrated tale with art by Eisner Award winner Darwyn Cooke (DC: THE NEW FRONTIER), revealing the introductory time Hal’s father took him flying as a child.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73073 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-20
• Released on: 2008-05-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 10.14″ h x .26″ w x 6.58″ l, .69 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
“No evil shall escape his sight…”
By N. Durham
You’ve got to hand it to Geoff Johns. The fan favorite writer has managed to sucessfully weave superb stories during his runs on the Flash, JSA, and his DC Universe shattering Infinite Crisis. However, there’s something about his relaunch of Green Lantern that just stands head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. After the events of Green Lantern: Rebirth, silver-age GL Hal Jordan has been resurrected and restored as a member of the Green Lantern Corps, with fellow GL John Stewart in the JLA, and fellow GL’s Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, and Kilowog in space training new recruits. Now that Hal is back, Johns retraces his silver-age origins from when he is first bestowed with the ring, to the present day as he is once again an air force pilot trying to reclaim the life that he had lost. No Fear begins with Hal on the trail of a murderous renegade Manhunter, and seeks out information from long time adversary Hector Hammond. There’s plenty of other appearances from the GL rogue gallery as well, and Johns’ wonderfully done homages to the GL stories of yesteryear are magnificent. Featuring art by a list of greats: Carlos Pacheco, Ethan Van Sciver, Darwyn Cooke; No Fear is an excellent re-launching of the new ongoing Green Lantern series, and an even more excellent return of one of the most iconic figures of the DC Universe.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Green Lantern Soars the Spaceways Again!
By Mel Odom
GREEN LANTERN: NO FEAR is far less technically ambitious than its predecessor, REBIRTH. The previous novel in the “new” adventures of Hal Jordan basically had to re-invent the character and discard a decade and more of maltreatment of the character, in my opinion.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
No Fear
By David
This collection of the latest adventures of the Silver Age Green Latern (Hal Jordan) is an excellent relaunching for the character and a fine place to begin for a reader new to this character. The history of the title comes alive, but in a way that does not swamp new readers to the series and the artwork is high-quality. The sole disappointment is the series is a bit slow to develop a few of the secondary story arcs.

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Green Lantern Vol 1 No Fear Pic

Green Lantern Vol 1 No Fear Pic

Green Lantern Vol 1 No Fear Photo

Green Lantern Vol 1 No Fear Pic

Green Lantern Vol 1 No Fear Photo

Green Lantern Vol 1 No Fear Photo

Costco overstock means items which are last year’s fashions, styles which are now discontinued, even items which might have a great deal of slight imperfections. For whatsoever reason, Costco didn’t trade them, but for you as a buyer or a retailer – that’s outstanding news because Costco overstock may save you big amounts of money!

One of the best things when it comes to Costco overstock is that no one will know that you purchased your stuff at discount – all that matters is that you are getting the best price for the goods that you want!

The place to start out your search for this bargain hunter’s paradise is to undertake and find a Costco return/overstock outlet. These places are commonly wholesale suppliers who have been brought in by Costco to shift merchandise that they can’t themselves. There’s ordinarily not one thing faulty with the merchandise, Costco just need to clear space to trade newer products, and because space costs them money, they get rid of their old stock at in a massive manner scaled down prices.

As a business, if you would like to buy numerous Costco overstock to trade to your customers, you’ll be glad to recognise that big bargains may be found, and you’ll be capable to pass on great savings to your buyers. In this day and age when everyone is looking for more bangs for their buck, if you are supplying high quality at low prices, you may bet that you are onto a winner. 

You may have heard persons saying that you may get the best prices for Costco overstock at outlet malls, but that’s in truth not true as outlet malls are not wholesalers, they are plainly discount merchants who sells goods at retail who are providing a price which is less than regular retail. That means that you may buy items for less by going direct to the Costco return/overstock outlet.

One thing that you will have to recognise is that a good wholesale provider will distinguish amidst Costco overstock and Costco returns. Returns are in general made up by items which have been applied and may have been damaged by the customer, of course, galore are just undesirable gifts or the faulty size, but returns will be even for less than Costco overstock because they may at times be harder to sell.

A outstanding thing in regards to using an American wholesale provider of Costco overstock is that you recognise the goods that you are buying are genuine. You are not buying a good deal of second rate knock-off, so you may be sure that your clients are going to be happy with the purchases they are making.

Whatever you do, make sure that you are sourcing your items from a reputable wholesale supplier. If they have a great track record, you are going to be far more likely to be happy with their service, and you won’t have to worry that you are merely wasting your money. A good Costco return/overstock outlet is like striking gold, the combining of high quality and low prices is something that your clients just won’t be capable to protest and will have your sales shooting to the moon.

Return To Paradise

Rancher Parker Robinson was having one of those weeks. His cook quit and his daughter was attempting her best to get expelled from boarding school. To top it off, he found a strange woman on his ranch who didn’t recognise who she was! What he knew was that she was off limits. She could be another man’s wife!
Christine couldn’t do not forget her name or how she got to the ranch in the middle of Colorado. All she knew was that she’d landed in galore kind of paradise where men were rugged and women were cherished. Somehow she had to find out who she was, where she came from and most essential – was she free to love again?

“Five Booklover’s Hearts…A terrifically passionate tale fraught with sexual tension…”—Laura Haley Booklovers

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5783 in eBooks
• Published on: 2011-05-04
• Released on: 2011-05-04
• Format: Kindle eBook
• Number of items: 1

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Highly Recommended
By Chloe
If you’re like me you can’t resist books that take place in the West on a ranch. There’s the to-die-for cowboy rancher, the woman with amnesia, the head-strong young daughter and the rancher’s dad with his earthy home-spun wisdom. Turns out the woman who landed on the ranch in the middle of a storm is a terrific cook and she fits in perfectly on the ranch. Now if only she could remember who she is and what she’s doing there.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
What More Could Go Wrong For This Rancher?!?!?!
By bsktbl
Cooks quitting, his daughter trying to get expelled from a private school, his mind in a turmoil. Just when the rancher thinks he is going to blow over the edge, something happens that dramatically changes his personality! A woman who just got struck by lightning is found laying still on a field on the rancher’s property! He takes the woman in, who he finds quite pretty, and for the first time after his previous divorce, he thinks he finds what he is looking for! He gives the mysterious woman a bath, and he finds a beautiful person, with an amazing body! What happens from there is left for you to fantasize about until you read this solid book in the “Paradise” series by Carol Grace!

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
A Great Read for Romance Fans
By Woody
A dynamite read for fans of traditional romance. There’s the heroine, struck by lightning while camping and a sexy rancher who finds her, his grizzled old timer father, and his young rebellious daughter. That’s the mix – find out what happens next. You won’t be sorry.

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Return To Paradise Image

Return To Paradise Image

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Return To Paradise Pic

Return To Paradise Image

I’m sure you have seen those accessaries worn by the Cullens and you probably wondered where to get those, right? If so then you’d better read this article and I will tell you more when it comes to the Twilight bracelet which you will surely love.

Everyone loves the Twilight movie and even the books. It was genuinely a total hit as soon it hits the market. I was genuinely one of those people who genuinely purchased the Twilight series books and even watched the movies. I even loved their accessaries peculiarly those bracelets! I actually love Bella’s bracelet peculiarly the one she received from Jacob.

Twilight bracelet has become a total hit not because of the movie but also because of it is authenticity and gorgeous craftsmanship. It is genuinely a perfective gift to those who just can’t get sufficient of this pretty movie. It actually even made those girls feel like as if they are Bella as soon as they wear Bella’s bracelet!

You will find the craftsmanship of this bracelet very intricate. Usually you will find them in silver and sterling settings and it comes with charms like the wooden wolf and the crystal heart. If you are on Team Jacob then you will surely love the one with the wolf charm or if you with the Team Edward then you will favor the one with the crystal heart charm.

If you want to get one of those bracelets then you will surely find them around the net today. There are tons of online shops merchandising these kinds of bracelets. You may also find them in the Twilight’s official website. It is crucial that you consider the materials applied to make those bracelets so it will last for a long time.

Twilight

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) doesn’t suppose much when she moves to the little town of Forks, Washington, until she meets the mysterious and handsome Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson)—a boy who’s hiding a dark secret: he’s a vampire. As their worlds and hearts collide, Edward will have to battle the bloodlust raging inside him as well as a coterie of undead that would make Bella their prey. Based on the #1 New York Times best-selling sensation by Stephenie Meyer, Twilight adds a dangerous twist to the classic story of star-crossed lovers.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94 in DVD
• Brand: PATTINSON,ROBERT
• Released on: 2009-03-21
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 122 minutes

• Condition: New
• Format: DVD
• AC-3; Color; Dolby; Dubbed; DVD; Subtitled; Widescreen; NTSC

446 of 505 people found the following review helpful.
Oh so terrible, but amazingly addicting. Love it, but wonder why.
By A. King
If I were rating this movie solely on quality of the film, it would get one star. if i were rating it solely on how much i love to watch it even though it’s awful, it would get 5 stars. SO I averaged it and got 3.

397 of 481 people found the following review helpful.
Became a fan after the movie…
By Tyrisell
I had heard about the fantasy books by a friend when they first came out but didn’t have the time to look into them. By the time the movie came out, I’d nearly forgotten about the book referral, but asked my hubby to take me as it looked like a good vampire romance flick. The scenery of the Pacific Northwest forests, rivers, and coastline was breathtaking and as a native to this area, it was like going out into my own backyard which made the film that more appealing. I was so captivated by the actors portrayal of the characters (the facial expressions and emotions brought out of the characters by Rob, Kristen, Peter, Nikki, and the rest were mesmerizing) and the depth of the back-story left me desiring more! The very next day after viewing the movie in the theater – I raced to the bookstore to grab the first book. I was hooked, read through all four books (plus went to the authors website to read the extra materials she had posted there) in a week. Then, still not satisfied, went back and saw the movie several more times – IN THE THEATER, something I’ve never felt compelled to do before – because I was so drawn to the characters and the story. This may have been written for the young adult audience but I’m 32 and a parent of four children, and still found the story to be well worth my time.

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Langston Hughes stands as a literary and cultural translation of the political resistance and effort of black knowingness leaders such as Martin Luther King to restore the rights of the black citizenry thence fulfilling the ethos of the American dream, which is celebrated universally each year around February to April.

Hughes’ overriding sense of a social and cultural intent tied to his sense of the past, the present and the future of black America commends his life and works as having much to learn from to inspire us to move forward and to inform and guide our steps as we move forward to give rise to a outstanding future.

Hughes is likewise significant since he seems to have conveniently spanned the genres: poetry, drama, novel and criticism leaving an indelible stamp on each. At 21 years of age he had published in all four (4) areas. For he always considered himself an artisan in words who would effort into each single area of literary creativity, because there were readers for whom a story meant more than a poem or a song lyric meant more than a story and Hughes wanted to reach that person and his kind.

But original and foremost, he considered himself a poet. He wanted to be a poetical who could address himself to the worries of his people in poems that could be read with no formal training or broad literary background. In spite of this Hughes wrote and staged dozens of short stories, regarding a dozen books for children, a history of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples (NAACP), two volumes of autobiography, opera libretti, song lyrics and so on. Hughes was driven by a sheer selfconfidence in his skillfulness and in the power of his craft.

Hughes” commitment to Africa was real and concretized in both words and deeds. The fact of his Negro-ness (though light-complexioned) has aroused in him a desire to challenge those from the other side of the color line that reject it:

My old man’s a white old man

And my old mother’s black

My old ma passed away in a fine huge house

My crazy passed from physical life in a shack

I wonder where I’m gonna die

Being neither white nor black?

His search for his origins was given impetus when in 1923 Hughes met and heard Marcus Garvey exhort Negroes to go back to Africa to escape the wrath of the white man. Hughes then became one of the poets who thought they felt the beating of the jungle tom-toms in the Negroes’ pulse. Their verse took on a nostalgic mood, and a great deal of even imagined that they were infusing the rhythms of African dancing and music into their verse like we could sense in the reading of this poem: ‘Danse Africaine’:

The low beating of the tom toms,

The slow beating of the tom toms,

Low …slow

Slow …low -

Stirs your blood.

Dance!

A night-veiled girl

Whirls softly into a

Circle of light.

Whirls softly …slowly,

Born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902, Hughes grew up in Lawrence, Kansas and Lincoln, Illinois, before going to high school in Cleveland, Ohio in of which places, he was percentage of a little community of blacks to whom he was nonetheless profoundly attached from early in his life. Though descending from a distinguished family his infancy was disrupted by the separation of his parents not long after his birth. His father then emigrated to Mexico where he hoped to gain the success that had eluded him in America. The color of his skin, he had hoped, would be less of a contemplation in determining his future in Mexico. There, he broke new ground. He gained success in business and lived the rest of his life there as a prosperous attorney and landowner.

In contrast, Hughes’ mother lived the transitory life mutual for black mothers ofttimes leaving her son in the care of her mother while searching for a job.

His maternal grandmother, Mary Langston, whose initial husband had passed from physical life at Harpers Ferry as a fellow member of John Brown’s band, and whose second husband (Hughes’s grandfather) had also been a militant abolitionist. instilled in Hughes a sense of dedication most of all. Hughes lived successively with family friends, then respective relatives in Kansas.

Another important family figure was John Mercer Langston, a brother of Hughes’s grandfather who was one of the best-known black Americans of the nineteenth century.

Hughes later joined his mother even even though she was now with his new stepfather in Cleveland, Ohio. At the same time, Hughes was struggling with a sense of desolation fostered by parental neglect. He himself recalled being driven early by his loneliness ‘to books, and the wondrous world in books.’ He became disillusioned with his father’s materialistic values and contemptuous faith that blacks, Mexicans and Indians were lazy and ignorant.

At Central High School Hughes excelled academically and in sports. He wrote poetry and short fiction for the school’s literary magazine and edited the school year book. He returned to Mexico where he taught English briefly and wrote poems and prose pieces for publication in The Crisis the magazine of the NAACP.

Aided by his father, he arrived in New York in 1921 ostensibly to attend Columbia University but in truth it was to see Harlem. One of his biggest poems, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” had just been published in The Crisis. His talent was without delay spotted though he only lasted one year at Columbia where he did well but never felt comfortable.

On campus, he was subjected to bigotry. He was assigned the worst dormitory room because of his color. Classes in English creative writing of recognized artisti value were all he could endure. Instead of attending classes which he found boring he would frequent shows, lectures and readings sponsored by the American Socialist Society. It was then that he was primary introduced to the laughter and pain, hunger and heartache of blues music. It was the night life and culture that lured him out of college. Those sweet sad blues songs captured for him the intense pain and yearning that he saw around him, and that he integrated into such poems as “The Weary Blues”.

To keep himself going as a poetical and aid his mother, Hughes served in turn as: a deliverance boy for a florist; a vegetable farmer and a mess boy on a ship up the Hudson River. As percentage of a dealer steamer crew he sailed to Africa. He then traveled the same way to Europe, where he jumped Ship in Paris only to spend various months working in a night-club kitchen and then wandering off to Italy.

By 1924 his poetry which he had all along been working on showed the powerful influence of the blues and jazz. His poem “The Weary Blues” which best exemplifies this influence helped launch his career when it won initial prize in the poetry section of the 1925 literary contest of Opportunity magazine and likewise won another literary prize in Crisis.

This landmark poem, the basi of any poetical to make use of that basic blues form is share of a volume of that same title whose entire collection reflects the frenzied atmosphere of Harlem nightlife. Most of it is selections just as “The Weary Blues” approximate the phrasing and meter of blues music, a genre extrapolated in the early 1920s by rural and urban blacks. In it and such other pieces as “Jazzonia” Hughes evoked the frenzied hedonistic and glittering atmosphere of Harlem’s widely known and esteemed night-clubs. Poetry of social commentary such as “Mother to Son” show how hardened the blacks have to be to face the innumerable hurdles that they have to battle through in life.

Hughes’ earliest influences as a mature poetical came interestingly from white poets. We have Walt Whitman the man who through his artistic violations of old conventions of poetry opened the boundaries of poetry to new forms like free verse. There is also the highly populist white German Émigré Carl Sandburg, who as Hughes’ ” guiding star,” was decisive in leading him toward free verse and a radically democratic modernist aesthetic

But black poets Paul Laurence Dunbar, a master of both dialect and general verse, and Claude McKay, the black radical socialist an emigre from Jamaica who also wrote accomplished lyric poetry, stood for him as the embodiment of the cosmopolitan and yet racially convinced and devoted black poetical Hughes hoped to be. He was likewise indebted to older black literary figures such as W.E.B. Dubois and James Weldon Johnson who admired his work and aided him. W.E.B. Dubois’ collection of Pan-Africanist essays Souls of Black Folks has markedly influenced a heap of black writers like Hughes, Richard Wright and James Baldwin.

Such colour-affirmative images and sentiments as that in “people”: The night is beautiful,/So the faces of my persons and in ‘Dream Variations: Night coming tenderly,/ Black like me. endeared his work to a wide range of African Americans, for whom he delighted in writing,.

Hughes had always shown his determination to experiment as a poetical and not slavishly follow the tyranny of tight stanzaic forms and precise rhyme. He seemed, like Watt Whitman and Carl Sandburg, to prefer to write verse which captured the realities of American speech rather than “poetic diction”, and with his ear specially attuned to the varieties of black American speech.

“Weary Blues” combines these respective constituents the mutual speech of usual people, jazz and blues music and the conventional forms of poetry adapted to the African American and American subjects. In his adaptation of traditionalisti poetic forms basi to jazz then to blues most times using dialect but in a way radically dissimilar from earlier writers, Hughes was well served by his early experimentation with a loose form of rhyme that often gave way to an inventively rhythmic free verse:

Ma an ma baby

Got two mo’ ways,

Two mo’ ways to do de buck!

Even more radical experimentation with the blues form led to his next collection, Fine Clothes to the Jew. Perhaps his finest single book of verse, including various ballads, Fine Clothes was also his least favourably welcomed.

Several reviewers in black newsprints and magazines were distressed by Hughes’ fearless and, ‘tasteless’ evocation of parts of lower-class black culture, including it is from time to time raw eroticism, never before treated in severe poetry.

Hughes expressing his determination to write with regards to such people and to experiment with blues and jazz wrote in his essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Published in the Nation in 1926

‘We younger artists…intend to express our person dark-skinned selves Without fear or shame. If white persons are pleased we are glad. If they Are not, it doesn’t matter. We recognise we are beautiful, And ugly too.’

Hughes conveyed his determination to write fearlessly, shamelessly and unrepentantly when it comes to low-class black life and persons inspite of opposition to that. He likewise exercised much freedom in experimenting with blues as well as jazz.

The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If coloured humans are pleased we are glad. If they are not their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how and we stand on top of the mountains, free within ourselves.

With his espousal of such thoughts defending the freedom of the black writer Hughes became a beacon of light to younger writers who likewise wished to assert their right to explore and exploit allegedly degraded distinct elements of black people. He thence provided the motion with a manifesto by so skillfully arguing the need for both race pride and artistic independence in this his most unforgettable essay,

In 1926 Hughes returned to school in the with respect to history black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he continued publishing poetry, short stories and essays in mainstream and black-oriented periodicals

In 1927 together with Zora Neal Hurston and other writers he founded Fire a literary diary devoted to African -American culture and aimed at demolishing the older forms of black literature. The effort itself was short-lived. It was engulfed in fire along with it is editorial offices.

Then a 70 – year old wealthy white patron entered his life. Charlotte Osgood Mason, who started directing almost each aspect of Hughes’ life and art. Her ardent faith in parapsychology, intuition and folk culture was brought into supervising the writing of Hughes’ novel: Not Without Lauqhter in which his boyhood in Kansas is drawn to depict the life of a sensible black child, Sandy, growing up in a representative, middle-class.mid-western African-American home.

Hughes’ kinship with Mason came to an explosive end in 1930. Hurt and baffled by Mason’s rejection, Hughes employed cash from a prize to spend various weeks recovering in Haiti. From the intense personal unhappiness and depression into which the break had sunk him.

Back in the U.S., Hughes made a sharp turn to the political left. His verses and essays were now being published in New Masses, a diary controlled by the Communist Party. Later that year he started out touring.

The renaissance which was long over was substituted for Hughes by a sense of the need for political struggle and for an art that reflected this radical approach. But his career, not similar to others then, without apparent effort pulled through the end of that movement. He held on developing his art in keeping with his sense of himself as a exhaustively professional writer. He then published his primary collections, the many times acerbic and even embittered The Ways of White Folks.

Hughes’ main concern was now, the theatre. Mulatto, his drama of race-mixing and the South was the longest running play by an African American on Broadway until Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun appeared in the 1960′s. His dramas – comedies and ramas of domestic black American life, for the most part – were also standard with black audiences. Using such inventions as theatre-in-the-round and invoking audience participation, Hughes prevised the work of later avant-garde dramatists like Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez. In his drama Hughes combines urban dialogue, folk idioms, and a thematic special and significant stress on the dignity and strength of black Americans.

Hughes wrote other plays, including comedies such as Little Ham (1936) and a historical drama, Emperor of Haiti (1936) most of which were only moderate successes. In 1937 he expended various months in Europe, including a long stay in besieged Madrid. In 1938 he returned home to found the Harlem Suitcase Theater, which staged his agitprop drama Don’t You Want to Be Free? employing various of his poems, vigorously blended black nationalism, the blues, and socialist exhortation. The same year, a socialist institution published a pamphlet of his radical verse, “A New Song.”

With the commence of World War II, Hughes returned to the political centre. The Big Sea, his introductory volume of his autobiography work with it is unforgettable portrait of the renaissance and his African voyages written in an episodic, lightly comic style with nearly no mention of his leftist sympathies appeared.

In his book of verse Shakespeare in Harlem (1942) he once again sang the blues. On the other hand, this collection, as well as another, his Jim Crow’s Last Stand (1943), strongly attacked racial segregation.

In poetry, he revived his interest in a heap of of his old themes and forms, as in Shakespeare in Harlem (1942).the South and West, taking poetry to the people. He read his poems in churches and in schools. He then sailed from New York for the Soviet Union. He was amidst a band of young African-Americans invited to take share in a film regarding American race relations.

This filmmaking venture, even though unsuccessful, proved instrumental to heightening his short story writing. For whilst in Moscow he was struck by the samenesses among D. H. Lawrence’s reputation in a title story from his collection The Lovely Lady and Mrs Osgood Mason. Overwhelmed by the power of Lawrence’s stories, Hughes begun writing short fiction of his. On his return to the U. S.. by 1933 he had sold three stories and had started out compiling his firstborn collection.

Perhaps his finest literary accomplishment for the duration of the war came in writing a weekly column in the Chicago Defender from 1942 to 1952. the spotlight of which was an offbeat Harlem reputation called Jesse B. Semple, or Simple, and his exchanges with a staid narrator in a neighborhood bar, where Simple commented on a potpourri of matters but mainly in regards to race and racism. Simple became Hughes’s most celebrated and beloved fictional creation. and one of the freshest, most arousing and attention holding and enduring Negro characters in American fiction Jesse B Simple, is a Harlem Everyman, whose comic manner scarcely obscured numerous of the severe themes raised by Hughes in relating Simple’s exploits in the quintessential “wise-fool’ whose experience and uneducated perceptivenesses capture the foilings of being black in America.. His honorable and unproblemati eye sees through the shallowness, hypocrisy and phoniness of white and black Americans alike. From his stool at Paddy’s Bar, in a delightful brand of English, Simple remarks both wisely and hilariously on some things but primarily on race and women.

His bebop-shaped poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (1991) projects a altering Harlem, fertile with humanity but in decline. In it, the drasti deteriorated state of Harlem in the 1950s is contrasted to the Harlem of the 20s. The exuberance of night-club life and the vitality of cultural renaissance has now gone. An urban ghetto plagued by poverty and crime has taken it is place. A change in rhythm parallels the alter in tone. The smooth patterns and tame melancholy of blues music are substituted by the abrupt, fragmented structure of post-war jazz and bebop. Hughes was alert to what was happening in the African-American world and what was coming. This is why this volume of verse reflected so much the new and comparatively new be-bop jazz rhythms that emphasized dissonance They therefore reflected the new pressures that were straining the black communities in the cities of the North.

Hughes’ living much of his life in basements and attics brought much realism and humanity to his writing specially his short stories. He therefore remained close to his vast public as he held moving figuratively through the basements of the world where his life is thickest and where mutual people struggle to make their way. At the same time, writing in attics, he rose to the long perspective that enabled him to radiate a humanizing, beautifying, but still truthful light on what he saw.

Hughes’ short stories reflect his entire intent as a writer. For his art was aimed at interpreting “the beauty of his own people,” which he felt they were taught either not to see or not to take pride in. In all his stories, his humanity, his faithful and artistic demonstrations of both racial and national truth – his successful mediation amongst the beauties and the terrors of life around him all shine out. Certain themes, technical excellencies or social perceptivenesses loom out.

“Slave in the Block” for example, a simple but bright tale reveals the lack of respect and even humane communication, amid Negroes and those patronizing and cosmetic whites.

Hughes also took time to write for children manufacturing the successful Popo and Fifina (1932), a tale set in Haiti with Arna Bontemps. He in the end published a dozen children’s books, on subjects such as jazz, Africa, and the West Indies. Proud of his versatility, he likewise wrote a commissioned history of the NAACP and the text of a much praised pictorial history of black America The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955), where he explicated photographs of Harlem by Roy DeCarava, which was judged masterful by reviewers, and confirmed Hughes’s reputation for an unrivaled command of the subtle differences in meaning or opinion or attitude of black urban culture.

Hughes’s suffered uninterrupted harassment in regards to his ties to the Left. In vain he protested he had never been a Communist having severed all such links. In 1953 he was subjected to public humiliation at the hands of Senator Joseph McCarthy, when he was forced to appear in Washington, D.C., and testify officially in regards to his politics. Hughes refused that he had ever been a communist but conceded that a heap of of his radical verse had been ill-advised.

Hughes’s career hardly suffered from this. Within a short time McCarthy himself was discredited. Hughes now wrote at length in I Wonder as I Wander (1956), his much-admired second volume of autobiography. when it comes to his years in the Soviet Union. He became prosperous, altho he always had to work hard for his measure of prosperity. In the 1950s he turned to the musical stage for success, as he sought to repeat his major success of the 1940s, when Kurt Weill and Elmer Rice had chosen him as the lyricist for their Street Scene (1947). This production was hailed as a breakthrough in the development of American opera; for Hughes, the apparently endless cycle of poverty into which he had been locked came to an end. He purchased a home in Harlem.

By the end of his life Hughes was almost universally recognized as the most representative writer in the history of African American creative writing of recognized artisti value and likewise as in all probability the most firstborn of all black American poets. He therefore became the widely acknowledged “Poet Laureate” of the Negro Race!

According to Arnold Rampersad, an authority on Hughes:

Much of his work celebrated the beauty and dignity and Humanity of black Americans. Unlike other writers Hughes basked in the glow of the plainly high regard of his indispensable audience, African Americans. His poetry, with it is primary jazz and blues influence and it is powerful democratic commitment, is closely surely the most influential written by any person of African dissent in this century. Certain of his poems; “Mother to Son” are virtual anthems of black American life and aspiration. His plays alone… could secure him a place in AfroAmerican literary history. His reputation Simple is the most unforgettable single figure to emerge from black journalism. ‘The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain’ is timeless, “it seems as a statement of uninterrupted dilemma facing the young black artist, caught amongst the contending forces of black and white culture’

Liberated by the examples of Carl Sandburg’s free verse Hughes’ poetry has always purposed for utter directness and simplicity. In this regard, is the notion that he almost never revised his work seeming like romantic poets who believe and demonstrate that poetry is a ‘spontaneous overflow of emotions”.

Like Walt Whitman, Hughes’s great poetic forefather in America’s poetry…, Hughes did believe in the poetry of Emotion, in the power of ideas and sensations that went beyond matters of technical crafts. Hughes never wanted to be a writer who conservatively sculpted rhyme and stanzas and in so doing lost the aroused heart of what he had set out to say.

His poems imbued with the distinctive diction and cadences of Negro idioms in simple stanza patterns and rigorous rhyme systems derived from blues songs enabled him to capture the ambience of the setting as well as the rhythms of jazz music.

He wrote largely in two modes/directions:

(i) lyrics regarding black life using rhythms and refrains from jazz and

blues.

(ii) Poems of racial protest

exploring the boundaries amongst black and white America. therefore contributing to the strengthening of black knowingness and racial pride than even the Harlem Renaissance’s bequest for it is most militant decades. While never militantly repudiating co-operation with the white community, the poems which protest versus white racism are boldly direct.

In “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” the simple direct and free verse makes clear that Africa’s dusky rivers run concurrently with the poet’s soul as he draws spiritual strength as well as person identity from the collective experience of his ancestors. The poem is according to Rampersad “reminding us that the syncopated beat which the captive Africans brought with them “that found it is basi expression here in “the hand clapping, feet stamping, drum-beating rhythms of the humane heart (4 – 5), is as ‘ancient as the world.”

But what Hughes is better known for is his treatment of the possiblenesses of African-American experiences and identities. Like Walt Whitman, he invented a persona that speaks for more than himself. His voice in “I too” for instance absorbs the depiction of a whole race into his central consciousness as he laments:

I, too, sing America

I am the darker brother.

I, too, am America.

The “darker brother” celebrating America is sure of a better future when he will no longer be shunted apart by “company”. The poem is characteristic of Hughes’s faith in the racial knowingness of African Americans, a knowingness that reflects their integrity and beauty while simultaneously demanding respect and acceptance from others as particularly when: Nobody ‘/I dare Say to me, Eat in the kitchen.

This dogged resistance and the optimisti feeling that all is going to turn out well in facing adversity is what Hughes’ life centred on.thus enabling him to survive and achieve in spite of the obstacles facing him. as Rampersad affirms:.

‘Toughness was a major characteristic of Hughes’ life. For his life was hard. He surely knew poverty and humiliation at the hands of people with far more power and cash than he had and little respect for writers, specially poets. Through all his poverty and hurt, Hughes held on a steady keel. He was a gentleman, a soft man in a great deal of ways, who was sympathetic and affectionate, but was tough to the core.

Hughes’s poetry reveals his hearty appetite for all humanity, his insistence on justice for all, and his faith in the transcendent future prospects or potentials of joy and hope that make room as he aspires in ‘I too’, for everyone at America’s table.

This deep love for all humanity is echoed in one of his poems: ‘My People” galore lines of which were earlier referred to:

The night is beautiful,

so the faces of my people,

the stars are beautiful,

so the eyes of my people

Beautiful, also, is the sun

Beautiful also, are the souls of my people

Arnold Rampersad’s last word on Hughes’s humanity, is anchored on three necessary attributes: his tenderness; generosity and his sense of humour.

Hughes was likewise tender. He was a man who lovse other persons and was beloved. It was very hard to find anybody who had known him who would say a harsh thing regarding him. People who knew him could do not forget little that wasn’t pleasant of him. Evidently, he radiated joy and humanity and this was how he was remembered after his death.

He loved the company of people. He necessitated to have humans around him. He necessitated them perhaps to counter the necessary loneliness instilled in his soul from early in his life and out of which he made his literary art.

Hughes was a man of outstanding generosity. He was generous to the young and the poor, the needy; he was generous even to his rivals. He was generous to a fault, giving to those who did not always is worthy of his kindness. But he was prepared to risk ingratitude in order to support younger artists in queer and young humans in general.

Hughes was a man of laughter, though his laughter closely always came in the presence of tears or the threat of the surge of tears. The titles of his original novel Not Without Laughter and a collection of stories Laughing to Keep from Crying. indicate this. This was fundamentally how he believed life ought to be faced – with the cognition of it is inescapable loneliness and pain but with an awareness, too, of the therapy of laughter by which we assert the humane in the face of circumstances. We must reach out to people, and one must not only have an awful tolerance of life’s sufferings but ought to also exuberantly finish the happy aspect of life.

His sense of humour is again credited by a writer from Africa who was like Hughes also faced with fighting racial discrimination and deprivation, Ezekiel Mphahlele.

Here is a man with a boundless zest for life… He has an irrepressible sense of humour, and to meet him is to come face to face with the essence of humane goodness. In spite of his literary success, he has earned himself the respect of young Negro writers, who never find him unwilling to aid them along. And yet he is not condescending. Unlike most Negroes who become widely known and esteemed or prosperous and move to high-class residential areas, he has continued to live in Harlem, which is in sense a Negro ghetto, in a house which he purchased with cash earned as lyricist for the Broadway musical Street Scene.

In explaining and illustrating the Negro condition in America as was his stated vocation, Hughes captured their joys, and the veiled weariness of their lives, the monotony of their jobs, and the veiled weariness of their songs. He accomplished this in poems noteworthy not only for their directness and simplicity but for their economy, lucidity and wit. Whether he was writing poems of racial protest like “Harlem” and “Ballad of the Landlord” or poems of racial affirmation like’ Mother to Son’ and ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers,’ Hughes was capable to find language and forms to express not only the pain of urban life but likewise it is magnificent vitality.

Further Reading:

Gates, Henry, Louis and Mc Kay Nellie, Y. (Gen. Ed) The Norton

Anthology of African American Literature, N.W. Norton & Co; New York & London 1997

Hughes, Langston, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” 1926. Rpt

in Nathan Huggins ed. Voices from the Harlem Renaissance Oxford

University Press, New York, 1976

Mphahlele, Ezekiel, “Langston Hughes,” in Introduction to African

Literature (ed) Ulli Beier, Longman, London 1967

Rampersad, Arnold, The life of Langston Hughes Vol. 1 & 11 Oxford

University Press, N. York, 1986

Trotman, James, (ed), Langston Hughes: The Man, His Art and His

Continuing Influence Garland Publishing Inc. N.

York & London 1995

Black Literature Criticism

The Oxford Companion to African American Literature., Oxford University Press,.1997

Life As We Knew It

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with it is brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event–an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing associate novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex’s parents vanish in the aftermath of tidal waves, he ought to care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and feed and aid dwindle.
     With haunting themes of family, faith, personal change, and courage, this powerful novel explores how a young man takes on unimaginable responsibilities.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29497 in Books
• Brand: Graphia
• Published on: 2010-01-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .85″ h x 6.82″ w x 7.12″ l, .54 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From School Library JournalGrade 7 Up—An asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, and each imaginable natural disaster occurs. Seventeen-year-old Alex Morales’s parents are missing and presumed drowned by tsunamis. Left alone, he struggles to care for his sisters Bri, 14, and Julie, 12. Things look up as Central Park is turned into farmland and feed begins to grow. Then global volcanic eruptions coat the sky with ash and the land freezes permanently. People starve, freeze, or die of the flu. Only the poor are left in New York—a doomed island—while the rich light out for safe towns inland and south. The wooden, expository dialog and evident set up of the original pages quickly give way to the well-wrought action of the snowballing tragedy. The mood of the narrative is appropriately frenetic, somber, and hopeful by turns. Pfeffer’s writing grows legs as the terrifying plot picks up speed, and conversations amongst the siblings are realistically liquid and sharp-edged. The Moraleses are devout Catholics, and even though the church represents the moral center of the novel, Pfeffer doesn’t proselytize. The characters evolve as the city decomposes, and the author succeeds in showing their heroism without making them caricatures of virtue. She accurately and knowingly depicts New York City from bodegas to boardrooms, and even the far-fetched science upon which the novel hinges seems well researched. This fast-paced, thoughtful story is a good pick for melodrama fiends and reluctant readers alike.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library Copyright © Reed Business Information, a section of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist*Starred Review* In Life as We Knew It (2005), veteran writer Pfeffer painted a terrifying picture of what happened in a rural Pennsylvania town after an asteroid hit the moon and cataclysmic changes on land and sea caused intimate life to grind to a halt. For readers who wondered if things were any better in a bustling city, here is the horrifying answer. On the night the moon tilts, 17-year-old Alex and his younger sisters are alone; their mother is at work, and their father is visiting Puerto Rico. No matter how the kids wish, hope, and pray, their parents don’t return. It’s up to Alex to do what’s best. At primary that means bartering for feed and batteries and avoiding fighting with the rambunctious Julie—especially after sickly Bri is sent to live at a rural convent. Later it means rescuing Julie from rapists and steering her away from the corpses that litter the street, supplying feed for rats. Religion is one of the strong threads running through the novel. It would have been interesting to see Alex wrestle more with his staunch Catholicism, but in some ways, the Church anchors the plot. The story’s power, as in the associate book, comes from readers’ capacity to picture themselves in a similiar situation; everything Pfeffer writes when it comes to seems wrenchingly plausible. Grades 8-12. –Ilene Cooper Review*”As riveting as Life as We Knew It and even grittier…The powerful images and wrenching tragedies will haunt readers.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review ) *”Everything Pfeffer writes with regards to seems wrenchingly plausible.” (Booklist, starred review ) “Incredibly engaging.” (Kirkus Reviews )

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
The best end of the world novel I have ever read, even better than “The Road”
By travb
I have read hundreds of end of the world books in my life, I have read 80% of all zombie books, watched dozens of movies on the end of the world. What I look for in a post apocalyptic book is realism after the disaster. Ironically, I always accept the premise which led to the apocalypse with no question, but am extremely demanding that the characters and the world around them deal with the apocalypse realistically.

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
An amazing companion novel to LAWKI
By Shaun Duke
I had the privilege to get an advanced reading copy and here is my review.

Last year I read Life As We Knew It by the same author of this wonderful book. You can find the review for that book here. I enjoyed Life As We Knew It so much that when I heard about there being a companion book I jumped with joy. Being a companion book also means you don’t have to have read Life As We Knew It to know what is going on. The Dead & the Gone is a completely separate story.
The Dead & the Gone uses the same premise as Life As We Knew It, but takes place in a vastly different environment that creates some truly gruesome challenges for the main characters. Before we were in Pennsylvania away from large bodies of water, away from large cities, and away from practically all the major problems of an urban sprawl. The Dead & the Gone, however, is the exact opposite, taking place in New York City. An asteroid has struck the moon, pushing it into a closer orbit around the Earth and thrusting the Morales family into a grueling struggle for survival. With Alex’s parents gone and presumed dead, he has to learn to take care of his younger sisters while keeping his faith in God. But New York City is not an easy place to live in when the electricity rarely works, fuel for stoves is in short supply, and a bitter winter caused by increased volcanic activity thrusts them into extreme cold, famine, and an epidemic.
Once again I feel that Susan has done a fantastic job bringing forward a truly powerful and realistic story about survival. The only thing SF about this story, again, is the impact on the moon, but the world we’re presented is a modern world.
The strongest element in this companion novel is a religious element. In Life As We Knew It religion wasn’t really a big deal, and in some ways it wasn’t even part of the story. For The Dead & the Gone religion is practically everything. Alex is a catholic going to a catholic private school in a family of catholics. He’s devout, his younger sister Bri is devout, and his youngest sister is religious, though not nearly as much as her siblings. This has to be stressed in my review because this story is partially a test of faith. How does one hold on to a belief in God when everything around you is falling apart and your prayers aren’t being answered? When people start committing suicide or dying on the street and nobody bothers to pick them up and tkae them elsewhere for days, weeks, even months, how do you deal with that belief in God? Even though Alex never does lose his faith, he does battle with doubts and feelings that he feels may be sinful. He must do things that he wouldn’t normally do and doesn’t feel comfortable doing (such as taking the clothes and personal items off dead bodies in the street to barter for food or stealing from abandoned apartments to do the same).
Alex is a strong character and a character you can’t help looking up to. He’s charged with taking care of his two sisters practically by himself. Unlike in Life As We Knew It, everything quickly turns to darkness as food becomes incredibly scarce and the bitter winters set in with no way to heat up an apartment that, by default, has no fireplace (I think the quickness of this was somewhat intentional to pull away from the longer feel of the previous book). He has to battle with the decisions he makes every day as he does everything he can just to keep his family alive. It’s harsh, it’s real, and it’s frightening to imagine that anyone would have to go through this. Would any of us survive?
There are some significant diversions beyond location from the previous book. In The Dead & the Gone we see the main character, Alex, get the flu, and have to follow him through the ordeal since he is the central character and the only character whose mind we get into. Susan does a marvelous job presenting a twisted, delusional view through the eyes of someone stricken with illness. The prose becomes disorienting just as the character descends into a myriad of hallucinations and merging of reality and bizarre fantasy. The ‘diary’ format carries over from the previous book, but here things are split up by day, but the entries are not diary entries, but standard prose entries, which diverges somewhat from the really internal feel and presents more of the grim reality of a New York City fallen from grace.
There are two flaws. The first is the ending, which does leave a little to be desired. Alex has such a hard time getting his sisters out of NYC, but in the end we’re led to believe that they must have gotten out. I found myself actually questioning that. What if that plan hadn’t worked? What if things failed? Could they be dead now? Perhaps that is what is wanted, and if so, good job, because I’m wondering. To be honest, though, this flaw wasn’t that big of a deal. I still loved the book. The other flaw with the book is that for those that have read Life As We Knew It, there isn’t a lot of surprise. You know what is going to happen with the moon, you know some of the things that will happen (food shortages, dead, and disease). Granted, some things are different and the way certain elements come into play differ from the first book, but they are the same in a lot of ways. The book, however, is still engaging and certainly a great read. Despite it being ‘predictable’ in the way I mentioned, it does leave twists and turns you wouldn’t expect. People die suddenly and without warning; reliable sources of food suddenly dry up; and illness takes hold.
Regardless, this is one of my favorite books of 2008 already. I fell in love with Life As We Knew It almost instantly, and it was the same here. This book is put together so well that I found myself on the edge of my metaphorical seat (I lay in bed and read). I regret to say that I had to put down the book at one point when something happened that upset me. I mean this in a good way though. Very few books get me so engaged that when someone dies or something bad happens it actually has an effect on me. I think part of me was just upset about what had happened, but I won’t ruin that for you, because it would take away the surprise. The pacing is perfect and the dates on the different sections are a great marker of time to keep you in the know. I sincerely hope that Susan continues writing these quasi-SF stories, these real life stories with a slight SF twist.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
a chilling portrayal of survival
By guitarchick24
I read Susan Beth Pfeffer’s “The Year Without Michael” quite some time ago, and I remember it being a haunting, if vaguely disturbing story that has no real conclusion. Having read “Life as We Knew It” and its sequel, “The Dead and Gone,” I have to say that that seems to be her forte: writing about characters in a slice of time that are dealing with unimaginable events. There’s no happy ending to these stories, it’s just a brief moment in their lives that show how they cope. In other words, it’s a lot like real life.

“The Dead and the Gone” follows 17-year-old Alex in the aftermath of a crazy astronomical event. The moon has been hit by an asteroid that knocks it out of orbit, affecting the tides, the atmosphere, and pretty much the entire environmental balance of the Earth. Alex takes on the responsibility of caring for his two younger teenage sisters while coping with the uncertainty of his parents’ fates, food supplies, and the future.

While this could probably be a standalone book, it’s more of a compliment to the previous novel set in this future, “Life as We Knew It.” Pfeffer assumes you’ve read the previous book and doesn’t set up the moon/asteroid event like she does in the first book. This gives “The Dead and the Gone” a faster-paced feeling, as it starts off with a bang (literally!) and the dramatic events keep unfolding.

The characters in this book are vastly different than the first, which some reviewers don’t seem to like. But to me it makes sense – the author is exploring how a worldwide event is affecting people from all walks of life. The “Life as We Knew It” characters aren’t especially religious, but Pfeffer chose to sketch a Puerto Rican family that takes faith very seriously in “The Dead and the Gone.” Obviously, the world is made up of people from all sorts of backgrounds – so why shouldn’t the author take on different types of characters? It might have been interesting if she had chosen to write about characters in another country, instead of basing her two books in the United States. But my overall point is, I think Pfeffer made a great decision in exploring how the same event would affect people with a different worldview.

If you’re looking for a happy ending, these are not the books you want to read. They’re more character studies in a short period of time, but there is no real conclusion. There’s hope at the end, but the story’s not really “finished” – kind of like real life.

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Tiger Woods, Dr. Benjamin Carson, Oprah Winfrey and Venus and Serena Williams are born in an American society where well over forty percent of prison inmates and students in particular education portion their ethnic background. Many researchers would argue that because of their race or ethnic background they would confront further and added psychological and economical obstacles than non-minorities that would make it exceedingly difficult for them to be successful.

Regardless of their chosen profession, what Tiger Woods, Dr. Benjamin Carson, Oprah Winfrey and Venus and Serena Williams have in mutual is not their race, cash or level of education; what they have in mutual is good old fashioned, down-to-earth, magnificent parenting. Most parents would like to believe that there is numerous type of magic in raising successful children because it relieves them from the guilty conscience of not giving their children the proper spiritual, psychological, and aroused accomplishments that they need to be successful in life. What do Beethoven, Thomas Edison, and Sigmund Freud have in mutual with Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Venus and Serena Williams and Dr. Benjamin Carson? You guessed it! Excellent parents. Quality parenting has not one thing to do with whether or not a child is raised in a two-parent or single-parent home; what matters the most is the parent’s capacity to instill in their child an impervious sense of self-worth, self-respect and self-love.

Listed under are the mysteries to raising extraordinarily successful children:

Model suitable behavior

1. Model the conduct that you suppose from your child. Many parents believe that it is okay to tell their children, “do as I say and not as I do.” Studies show that if the parent smokes, there is a high chance that the child will also smoke. Don’t tell your children to read, when they have never seen you pick up a book. Don’t ask your children to clean their bedroom when your bedroom is a mess. I worked in the child welfare system for 13 years helping to reunite families. One of the most indispensable lessons that I learned from working with parents whose children were got rid of from their home due to neglect and/or abuse is that even when parents didn’t think their children knew that they were using illegal drugs, drinking excessively, or having multiple sex partners; for the duration of family counseling sessions, the parents were astonished to learn that their children were always conscious of their conduct and viewed them as hypocrites and liars. Do and be all of the things that you want your children to do and be.

Give them Self-esteem

2. Children see themselves through their parent’s eyes. When you smile at them they feel loved and accepted. Children are constantly looking into your eyes for approval and validation of their self-worth. Babies are competent of detecting their parent’s emotions that even the parent is not conscious that they are emitting such as anger, guilt feelings and sadness. If the parent refers to the child as dumb, stupid, or clumsy this is how the child will understand herself. Do not call your child derogatory names because this becomes a share of their psychological dictionary of their self concept. Tell your child how wonderful, smart and intellectual he is. Tell her that it is okay to make errors and let them undertake again. Let the child aid you make rules and aftermaths for breaking them for the home. Give them chores. Children, like adults, feel good regarding themselves when they feel that they are contributing to their own well-being to the best of their ability.

Teach Self-Discipline

3. Teaching a child to control their own conduct in spite of their moods or sensations is the biggest gift that a parent may give their child. Self-discipline will give the child the selfassurance to excel in each area of their life. Self-discipline is the skill that will support them grasp when they have had too much to drink or that they need to get sufficient sleep at night to carry out well on a test the next day. The mystery to instructing self-discipline is to coordinate must-do-tasks with gratifying activities. All children must have a study schedule. A time that is set a side just for doing homework. The study schedule will have to not conflict with their favored television show, sports or other activities. Your child may reward themselves by spending time on their myspace account, talking on the phone or visiting friends.

Teach Critical Thinking

4. Teach your children to ask questions, gather facts and make conclusions on their own disregarding of the source of information. When you are watching cartoons or primetime shows with your children ask them if they think the show ought to have ended differently and why. Read stories to your children and ask them whether or not they think the story is plausible. Ask your child their sentiment regarding respective topics and ask them to aid their answers with evidence. Giving your child the capacity to think severely and make an analyzation of situations from respective perspectives and viewpoints is the biggest gift that you could ever give them to live harmonious in a multi-cultural society. When a child is competent to seriously think for herself and make rational sound decisions; they will be less likely to engage in sexual activity, use illegal substances or participate in gangs. They will be competent to determine if their actions are taking them closer to their life goals or further from their life goals. Most importantly, they will not make their conclusions based on whether or not they will be caught or punished by authorities; they will make their decision based on their sense of right and wrong of what is right and wrong. Teach them that greatness is not always in regards to having the right answers or delighting others; greatness is regarding asking the necessary questions and doing what is right, even if you stand alone.

Sense of Purpose

5. Find out what your child is naturally good at and give them as a heap of prospects as possible to express their natural gifts and talents. Include these actions when helping them to do their home work. Study Howard Gardener’s 9 Types of intelligence and make an analyzation of which type of intelligence best fit your child. Read selective information with regards to learning styles and determine if your child is a left or right brain learner, and how they best procedure info in terms of whether the info is auditory, visual or kinesthetic. Some children do not fit into society’s standard mode of intelligence and are labeled as academic poor achievers. However these same children may be gifted at building things, painting, drawing or creating music. It is primary for parents to tell their children that they were born with the perfective physical and intellectual gifts and natural abilities and qualities to make their dreams come true. Birds were born with wings to fly, not to swim underneath water. Let your children know that there is a particular place in the world just for them. Teach them to be grateful for who they are when no one is looking.

Mental Toughness

6. We have all heard the saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but word will never hurt me.” Yet, we all know, that not one thing hurts the humane soul more than words. I bet you may without delay think of three or more times that someone has said something to you that injure you so deeply that you could not sleep at night. You instruct your children to be mentally tough by telling them that the most important person’s sentiment of them that matters is their own and secondly, would be the opinion of someone who loves them deeply. Tell your child that people with bogus selfassurance only believe in themselves when they are winning or things are going their way. People with real selfconfidence believe in themselves irrespective of the outcome because they only focus on the things that they may control. Teach them that they may not control the grade that the teacher will give them after a test; they may only control how long they study and how well they prepare before the test. Teaching a child to be mentally tough is instructing them to focus on the things that they may control and to ask themselves honestly, “Did I do my best?” If they may answer yes. There next question will have to be, “What may I do differently next time?”

Compassion

7. Compassion is the universal language of feelings, emotions and morality. Teaching your child with regards to compassionateness does not always include man-made laws and rules because these laws have invented unspeakable conditions of humane suffering such as slavery and what happened to the Jews. Teach your children that if they want to know how someone would feel or whether or not an act is right or wrong, tell them to ask themselves, “Do I want this to take place to me or someone I love dearly?” Their answer will connect them to the sincerest form of compassionateness that is connected to all of humanity.

Teach Your Child To Swim Usborne Parents

This is a new edition of the practical parents’ guide providing counsel on how to instruct children aged three months and upwards to swim. It takes parents from basic actions to do with their child – prepare them for swimming to how to instruct all the major strokes, as well as diving, swimming underwater and drifting techniques. This is an indispensable yet accessible guide to instructing children one of life’s major skills. It also holds emergency procedures such as conserving body heat and resuscitation. It is devised in consultation with swimming expert Carol Hicks.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45290 in Books
• Brand: EDC / Usborne Books
• Published on: 2007-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .37″ h x 7.99″ w x 10.35″ l, .90 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Great title for improving kids’ swimming at any age
By Laura
I bought this book thinking it would help transition my 4-year old from a floatie to swimming independently this summer. To my surprise, it had everything in it from infant water-familiarization to great games to develop confidence and good stroke form. We’ve used the games with both 4 and 9-year old kids and are working on strokes with them using these exercises. With illustrations and suggestions, it was more than we bargained for, and a pleasant surprise. This publisher seems to put out a very high quality product.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Very Useful and Well Produced
By Neil D. Myers
This book is of high quality with a lot of helpful photos and diagrams. It deals with introducing babies and young children to the water and offers a lot of useful exercises for helping children feel comfortable in the water.

It is a very helpful guide for parents, thoughtfully laid out and well written.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Perfect introduction to water for your kids
By Mark Young
If you want to introduce your children to the water then this is the book for you. It contains everything you need from 3 months upwards to help make your baby learn that the water is fun and to help enhance that fun as they grow through childhood. As a swimming teacher myself I have used most of the information in this book over many years and was familiar with it before I read it. Although there is nothing revolutionary in here it is clear and concise and a perfect package for parents to use parts of either at home in the bath or at the swimming pool. Recommended.

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Teach Your Child To Swim Usborne Parents Image

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