Westerns Books

As a "novice" gardener, and new owner of an old house with plenty of landscaping to improve on, I find this book an easy, enjoyable and inspiring read on low care, tough plants. Great photos, too.

I bought this used. It was received in a few days and to me it looks brand-new just like the one I had checked out of the library.

Intrigued by the title, I began reading this book and found myself laughing out loud with the author's descriptions. Though a good book for anyone with an interest in gardening, with its easy-to-follow instructions, beautiful pictures and recommendations, this is also a 'good read' for those of us who are already gardening addicts. I was glad to find someone else who couldn't pass up an intriguing plant even though we had absolutely no idea where we were going to put it. This is a book for the curious, the experimenter, and those who simply find joy in the garden. I loved the book, have already enjoyed reading the commentary over and over again...and, of course, will look for some of the recommendations I haven't heard of before. This would also make a great gift for any 'budding' gardener!

I read this book many years ago and enjoyed it immensely. Recently working in Texas, I decided to do a little background on the "real" Cullen Baker. Turns out Mr. L'Amours research is not as careful as he and others would have us believe. I understand the concept of poetic liscense but this isn't even close. The Cullen Baker of history bears absolutely no resemblance to the man immortalized in L'Amours novel. It would appear that L'Amour only bothered to reference a few popular stories and none of the solid historical records available on Baker. Cullen Baker was a vicious, opportunistic thug who bore no allegiance to anything or anyone but himself. The concept of fair play didn't seem a part of his makeup. There is no reliable historical evidence that Baker was ever a quickdraw artist. Looking for a good story? Read the "First Fast Draw". Looking for reliable history of the man-avoid L'Amours fantasy book.

Answers.com, Wikipedia,and Thomas Orr, Baker's sworn enemy, portray Cullen Baker as a Reconstruction period desperado, outlaw and thug who killed hundreds of people. And that well may have been true! But as we all know, history is written by the victors in any conflict.
Louis L'Mour's "The First Fast Draw" is a romanticized interpretation of Baker's life. Like the historically accurate books of the Revolutionary War period by Kenneth Roberts, L'Mour shows us Baker's life from his own perspective. Like all of L'Mour's books, the writing is superb, the characterization excellent and the story is compelling. L'Mour was known for his accuracy in describing the Western landscape, and for his careful research. Written in the first person, "The First Fast Draw" is an idealized portrait of a temperamental, physically gifted man who struggled with his inner demons and eventually conquered them.
After reading the First Fast Draw, you may experience, as I did, a longing for times past and the realization that the risk-averse, corrupt and hypocritical society that has evolved from Baker's time in 1869 is a far cry from the "land of the free and the home of the brave."

Actually, years ago, this was the first L'Amour I read. I have been hooked ever since. The post Civil War years are rather fastinating and L'Amour is able to capture, in fiction, the general feeling and plight of those who lived those times. As an added bonus, like all L'Amour books, the setting of this story is quite well handled. East Texas is still East Texas and the author's discription and feel for the country is wonderful. This is a very easy book to read and I certainly would recommend it to the younger reader interested in this particular genre. All in all, great fun!

The book "The First Fast Draw" takes place after the Civil War. The genre is a western setting, in the south west part of the United States. The reading has a lot of action and it is really easy going, and not hard to read or comprehend at all. It is a great high school reading book, because it is short, easy to read, and has a good genre. I would give this book five stars and a pat on the back for its excellence.

The plot of the book is when Collin Baker decides he needs to go back to east Texas, to regain and farm his fathers' land. The problem with him doing this is that when his family first moved to east Texas he became known as a troublemaker. He ended up beating up a bunch of boys that were older than he was, but he was doing it in self-defense, therefore he has many enemies in East Texas. Also the carpetbaggers and the Reconstructionists have other plans for his land. Collin Baker returns to his home, but the first night he is home he already runs into trouble. At first, Baker thinks he beat his enemies by himself but learns very fast that he needs friends and to learn to shoot very fast and quick. He quickly found Bob Lee, Bill Longley, and Matt Kirby, who were also having the same problems. Bob Lee is a character who is always ready to fight and looking for action. Bill Longley grew up with Collin, so they knew each other and were also one of Collins few friends. Matt Kirby is woods men that stayed in the swamps trapping. The four of them hide in the woods were nobody knows of. They train and Collin keeps on getting better and better with his gun. Finally its time for them to regain what is rightfully theirs. They kill of bunch of their enemies, but Collin gets caught in the process. He gets thrown in jail and is scheduled for a hanging the next day. While he is in jail he doesn't worry about his problems but worries about his friends trying to get him out and getting caught in the process. He friends come anyways and they all escape. They know now that they need to flee the area so they all head out west together and start over. I believe the main theme of the story is to know how good your friends are to you. Never let anything happen to your friend that you wouldn't want to happen to you. Know that your friends will be there for you when you need him the most. I really liked this book and the tone of it too. The author did a great job of giving great detail and describing everything. I would defiantly recommend this book to anyone who likes the woods and guns.

This is a great read whether you're a college student or just interested in a very practical construct for understanding business analysis and decision-making. Don't view this as the dry, age-old, micro-econ, theoretical, drudgery. This is real-life, pragmatic, business economics that ought to be read by students, entrepreneurs and executives alike. Better than Levitt's Freakonomics since it's beyond just interesting facts, it's actually useful in business practice. Who can ever refer to a managerial econ tome as actually fun and engaging to read. This one is. Buy it, start it...and, I guarantee you'll finish it.

Imagine my surprise upon reading this book. I majored in Economics in college and vividly remember "waiting" for the more advanced classes to reveal something practical as I advanced towards graduation. That proved elusive. College economics texts were all much the same - theoretical and full of supply/demand curves. They were boring.
My complimets to Luke Froeb for taking a practical approach to this subject matter. In doing so, he has done his profession a favor and challenged the status quo. This is a unique book, and for the sake of future Economics and Business students I hope that its delivery and stylistic examples become the way this subject is taught from this point forward.

This book is a great read for beginners and experts alike. Its easy-to-relate examples make sure the message gets across - how to solve business problems using micro-economics.

The book is full of "easy to apply" tools in various situations. If you have read this book, your approach to problem solving will never be the same again!

Highly recommended!

Not your typical economics text - the writing is lean and precise, and the authors use examples that demonstrate the concepts in ways that business students will find useful beyond the classroom.

As an executive MBA student using this text, I have found it to be a clear and concise explanation of how economics MUST be used to optimize company performance. Rational Actor Paradigm, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Game Theory, and other fundamental tools are covered effectively. The book is brief and very readable; perfect for someone who needs the info, but is short on time.

The first half of this book was WONDERFUL, I was soo excited!!!! The story was gripping from the first line. Wonderful chemistry and excellent plot. HOWEVER, the second half of the book was not as well written and it seemed she tried to cram too many plot lines into one book. At one point in the story the Female Lead says she "will only marry for love and therefore if he wants her, he will have to court her properly." (THUS THE TITLE) So, I looked forward to his efforts to win her heart. Which did not happen for on the very next page the courting was completely forgotten and never revisited. I was disappointed. I was also not satisfied with the ending. In the beginning you are left wondering about so many things and in the end the answers are all rushed and bogus. Still worth reading. Just a bummer to have it start so solid and fall apart in the end.

Courting Susannah is a charming book that features Susannah McKittrick, the namesake of the book obviously, and Aubrey Fairgrieve, the widower of Susannah's childhood friend.

Linda Lael Miller again writes a good, solid tale of two wonderful characters and secondary characters also. She weaves humor in with the romance, and even some suspense. While I felt the ending was a little too hurried and abrupt, it was still a good storyline and I highly recommend it!

I thought the book was good but not something I'd pick up & read again. There wasn't very much action or suspense but it was good nonetheless. The storyline was a good one but I expected more from it. If you don't mind a slow romance then go ahead & read this book but if you are looking for a bunch of excitement I'd try another one.

This was a really fun read. At times it was hard to put down. I was pretty satisfied with the character development and plot.

This book is definitley brain candy =)

This was a wonderful book - the great quality of Linda Lael Miller is evident in the writing of this story. Following Susannah and her battle to over come her feelings for her old friend and her growing feelings for her dead friends husband is wonderful. Couldn't put it down.

Barnabas Sackett's life from his evasion of the Queen of England in Europe to fighting and befriending different tribes of Indians North of Jamestown and South of Plymouth. Makes a long drive seem much shorter! John Curless has a perfect voice for this story. One of Louis Lamour's best!

I discovered books on CD from a coworker. Having a one hour and ten minute commute each way makes listening to books on CD a great way to enjoy the travel time.
I found this book very well written and very well spoken. One person having to read the voice of many characters is probably not the easiest thing to do. This reading is well done. I found myself sitting in the company parking lot just to finish a chapter before facing my workday. This was my first L'Amour book on CD and it was very enjoyable.

Sackett's Land and To the Far Blue Mountains make a complete story of the life and times of the Sackett progenitor. The combination is entirely satisfactory. L'Amour had the ability to tell the story well, and he developed that ability with years of work and research. It is probably fortunate for Sackett enthusiasts that he wrote the first books in the series later in his writing career. We benefit from his seasoned skills.

As in his westerns, in this book L'Amour focuses on what he finds interesting and what he thinks the reader will like to know. For the most part, he doesn't go into the technical detail that some authors pursue, but he paints a clear picture. The reader has a feeling of being there, or the strong sense that they could be there, right along with our hero.

The Sackett family saga is the story of an American family. Like all of L'Amour's work, it is wholesome and educational. He consistently hits on themes that his readers recognize, the importance of education and critical thinking, respect for our fellow creatures and the world in which we live,loyalty to family and friends, and taking positive action to shape one's own life. All that and a fun story too, for the cost of five bucks.

Dramatically narrated by John Curless, To The Far Blue Mountains is an flawlessly recorded audiobook presentation of yet another of Louis L'Amour's classic western novels featuring the hardy endurance of the Sackett clan as they addressed the challenges of life in the Old West. To The Far Blue Mountains follows Barnabas Sackett, who is on the run with his steadfast wife Abigail and his only escape is to the west. This is a superbly written adventure story of earning a life for oneself on the frontier, surviving all manner of hazards both human and environmental, and eventually prospering despite the hostilities of nature and man alike. To The Far Blue Mountains is an enthusiastically recommended audiobook for personal and community library collections!

I picked up this book because the intro on the back cover sounded good and I've liked almost every L'amour book I've read. Its written in a first person narrative as though he was sitting across from you on the couch telling the story.

The first half of the book is terrific, following his escape from England. We learn of his thirst to be out in the wild open spaces of the newly discovered America, he is falsy accused and is running from the law collecting people to join him as he describes the new beginnings they can have in the New World. Its very tightly written (though I think his escape from prison was way too easy) and you really love the character.

Once the group got to America things changed. In an effort to show the WHOLE life of Barnabas the whole story changes, now we have 50 years of history in 100 pages. So the narrative changes from a day-by-day upbeat story where friends are joining the group to a list of significant events, usually where one of the group dies from an indian raid. It becomes a series of "we built a fort", "xxx died in an indian raid", "the fort burned down", "we went down to sea and traded our skins for supplies", "yyyy died in an indian raid", "we built another fort", etc.

I didn't like the ending either, I think the whole story basically got pretty depressing towards the end with all the group dying or leaving to go off and do other things. All the next generation were grown up and strong but we don't have the emotional connection with them that we did with the first group.

The music industry is on trial as well as it should be. The cloning of America starts with it's youth, and when Bill Graham closed the Fillmore East in 1971 it was due to the capitalism of the recording industry. Image formula's, profit puppets, and total escape became the norm. What is interesting here is that Attali looks at serious contemporary composition as the only hope to create new forms and provides us with social parallels. That is exactly what John Cage was thinking. The only real freedom is internal, but through exposed sound structures multiperspectives on reality - our current situation will eventually collapse. As Varese said, "The modern day composer refuses to die."

Sometimes lazy people like to use phrases like "literary{wind} " to justify their inability to understand difficult topics, or to cover for their own, lacking, vocabularies. The foregoing review did just that. The fact is, sometimes precise thought demands precise language.

Anyway, this book provides valuable insight into the relationship of fringe art/music, and the future of society. Attali postulates that society is founded upon the idea that bad noise must be subverted. Therefore, all forces effecting social change, at some time, have been subverted. Given time though, they find their way into society by way of, here, music, and begin to cause change.

This is a very interesting and well conceived book. A great read for philosophy student and musician alike. It puts a new spin on the effect of music on culture, and the reciprocal relationship between art and society. Good stuff.

In closing, and in response to the previous reviewer, "college isn't taken as seriously as it once was" simply because the hallowed halls are clogged with students who readily dismiss works of sound thought because they don't like having to look up words or work for their own enlightenment.ENDs

A musicology professor of mine recommended I use this book in a presentation I gave on aesthetics. I compared Attali's approach to that of Benjamin and Adorno and found myself highlighting and smiling and nodding. I found this book to be so brilliant and hopeful (where Adorno was so pessimistic) that I used it again in a presentation for another graduate musicology seminar.

If you don't like to read books that use complex sentences and multi-syllabic words, you should not be in higher education in the first place. Attali makes arguments that may seem outlandish, but with more thought and consideration, prove to be intelligent, fresh, and seemingly common sense.

... because it is so outrageous to be brilliantly thought provoking. Sometimes I think he is out to lunch and I am not confident that he understands everything he wrote. (or maybe the translation is not right.) Still, the mythology he presents is detailed and well developed and whether you agree with it or not, is fascinating.

There is a lot of coverage of European classical music in terms of "Who is paying whom" as well as the current recording industry. He also gets some things wrong, such as his coverage of Free Jazz (Carly Bley is black?), to which he nevertheless is sympathetic towards.

Therefore, I don't know how much you can trust his conclusions, but at the same time it gets the reader's mind to consider all sorts of new facets, and that is why this book is great.

... because it is so outrageous to be brilliantly thought provoking. Sometimes I think he is out to lunch and I am not confident that he understands everything he wrote. (or maybe the translation is not right.) Still, the mythology he presents is detailed and well developed and whether you agree with it or not, is fascinating.

There is a lot of coverage of European classical music in terms of "Who is paying whom" as well as the current recording industry. He also gets some things wrong, such as his coverage of Free Jazz (Carly Bley is black?), to which he nevertheless is sympathetic towards.

Therefore, I don't know how much you can trust his conclusions, but at the same time it gets the reader's mind to consider all sorts of new facets, and that is why this book is great.

I am happy to have ordered this book from this book seller. It came in time and good copy. I had ordered a new book and I got a new book.

pellucid, even. clear and concise. a return to marx, away from marxism. this would be the perfect text to use at the end of a course on marx(ism)-- subsumes all other critiques whilst returning to the original texts themselves. if that does convince you: it's a cheap and easy read! buy it now! (plus, cool cover art).

Verso's decision to republish this book should be lauded. For the better part of a decade in the late '90s and '00s they allowed it to languish in out-of-print obscurity; it deserved a better fate, as this is a very useful classroom text.

This is simply the best introduction available to the issues and texts of Marxism for the contemporary student of continental philosophy or "theory." Balibar is astonishing in his brevity and his lucidity when summarizing a hundred and fifty years of Marxist thought on issues such as ideology and false consciousness, time and history, class struggle and dialectics. The main text is organized in about five brief chapters on themes such as these. Page-length boxes set into the text expand on key issues, texts, and sources -- from the "three sources of Marx's thought" to the Theses on Feuerbach -- and provide capsule biographies of important Marxist writers from Gramsci to Lukács to Lenin. It's also a terrific reference -- if Balibar's text is sometimes too dense for an introductory-level student to read quickly, its density helps it retain interest and utility for the more sophisticated reader. There is no other book like this one, and it should be embraced.

Balibar's little book is suited for newcomers, to Marx and philosophy, and for those who are familiar with both and are just looking to have a little life blown into those dead bones. Balibar's intent is to argue for current relevance of Marx's thought, while at the same time destroying all of the dogmatic ideas of "Marxist philosophy." Balibar reanimates Marx's thought by outlining the series of problems that it poses.

This book is perfect for those wanting to learn basic bookkeeping skills. It is also a great reference for anyone looking to brush up on their skills. The chapters are short, include many examples, and are written in basic English. It is easy to follow along.

My daughter and I took different accounting classes at the same time. This book seemed much easier to follow and explained things more clearly than hers. I like the way the workbook works with this text, too.

I really enjoyed "A Springwater Christmas" as part of Linda Lael Miller's Springwater series. Brought tears to my eyes an a few different occasions while reading this book. I would recommend this series and this book. I would also recommend a few other series that Linda Lael Miller has pinned.

The title led me to believe that this was a warm fuzzy book appropriate for the holidays. However the reviews set me straight and i decided to read it. I had not read the prequels to this so the characters were all new. The story line is aptly told in other reviews. This is an excellent story, certainly with a different plot, that is about friendship, love, and forgiveness. The hero......jack/will/wesley is a hunk by any name. His emotions bare his soul to us. Olivia is a "spinster" with an enormous amount of love to offer once she opens herself up to those possibilities. I wish ms miller would have made olivia a bit less spinsterish and perhaps not referred to her so often as being a prickly spinster.You could see the evolution happening but unfortunately the book ended too quickly. I am very glad I picked this one up and would read it again.......even in the summer.

That's right, I wish the Springwater Series never had to end. It was extremely good from beginning to end. The final book Speringwater Christmas really had a wonderful story. Since the series had to end--------what a way to end!

This was a really good book. The last book left off with our meeting Olivia who was saved from the train wreck. This book starts off with a stranger riding into Springwater & he stays at Olivia's rooming house. It's no secret because it's pretty obvious from the description & right off in the book so I'm just going to state that the stranger is one of June Bug's & Jacob's long lost twin boys returned using the name Jack. We've all thought that both sons were dead but here you will see a reunion as well as Olivia & "Jack" falling in love. This book had me crying & laughing out loud. It's a really great heartwarming tale. Read it!

I have read through the Springwater Series faster than anything else! It is such a heartwarming frontier town and really makes you feel like you are part of the group.

This book picks up right where Jessica's story left off. At the end of her book, Miss Olivia Darling was saved from the wrecked train and was moving to Springwater to start a boarding house. It's been about a year, and she hasn't had a boarder...until the mysterious Jack McLaughlin shows up on her doorstep. He has a past that he's trying to hide, but also wrestling with whether or not he should reveal his secrets. It goes on from there...

I cried when I read this book. It was touching. It is predictable...as most romance novels are...but it was such a heartwarming tale. Read it!