"Completely revised and expanded to nearly twice its original size: the 2-million-copy national bestseller that is one of the most directly helpful and inspirational books available on the subject of loss--either by death or divorce--and emotional recovery."

Dr.Malamud Writes:

How to Survive while not a scholarly work about loss is a good book. At 208 pages, with one page covered with 'Lessons' from One to Ninety-Four, and the other a short and usually trite poem, it is a very quick read. As I was breezing through it, I recognized the distinctive 1970s writing style of the deceased Peter McWilliams, who also authored DO IT! Let's Get Off Our Buts. How to Survive is a fun and uplifting book and sectioned into four parts: Understanding Loss, Surviving, Healing and Growing. Although some nutrition suggestions have been proven to be false, and I mourn the mention of a New Age-type, feel-good and powerless god, How to Survive is a worthwhile book to help those suffering from loss gain comprehension and solace.

Begun: 03/09/2007   Finished: 03/09/2007 Purchased: March 2007
Where: barnesandnoble.com
B&N Net Rank: 2,275

"We all know the opposite sex can be a baffling, even infuriating, species. Why do most men use the phone to exchange information rather than have a chat? Why do women love talking about relationships and feelings with their girlfriends while men seem drawn to computer games, new gadgets, or the latest sports scores? Does it really all just come down to our upbringing? In The Essential Difference, leading psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen confirms what most of us had suspected all along: that male and female brains are different ... "

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

I've always known I was different, and The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male & Female Brain explains why I don't behave as most males do. Author Simon Baron-Cohen, Ph.D, has answered the question why I've been 'gay-bait' ever since I can remember. (As a matter of fact, while I was at Starbucks, reading Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends - a book for divorced heterosexuals - I was once again, approached by a gay man. My brain leans heavily towards the empathy generally seen only in females, which leads men who have chosen to smoke the meat-pipe, to assume I'd like to share a puff. No way. Please leave me alone.) Most men's brains are geared for systems building, memorizing sports statistics and proving who can piss the farthest, rather than the almost always less physical and more sophisticated behavior of females. (Note that I read the hardback version while only the retitled paperback version is currently available.) The body of this 186-paged book, followed by thirty-five pages of a self-test-containing Appendix, nine pages of (unread) footnotes, a twenty-nine-paged bibliography ending with a six-paged index, puts forth the novel idea that men and women are different and even goes so far to claim in this PC world, that males and females are superior at divergent tasks. Imagine that. As the good doctor explains on the very first page:

"The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building."

Begun: 02/24/2007   Finished: 03/01/2007 Purchased: February 2007
Where: barnesandnoble.com
B&N Net Rank: 55,366

" ... in Chapter After Chapter, she addresses the next set of stumbling blocks most writers will be familiar with-finding the dedication and focus to make the dream of writing your book come true. Just perusing this books table of contents should have your head nodding in affirmation to the quandaries common to beginning writers and veteran pros. Sellers doesn't just identify the stumbling blocks, she thoughtfully acknowledges each one and presents original solutions to bring about their demise. For example, in Chapter 2's Limits, starts with a simple statement: 'The number one reason books don't get finished is this: Writers say yes to other things.'  Who among us can't relate to that?"

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

In this extremely easy to read, seven by five inch, 233 paged book by Heather Sellers, one will find among its thirty-three tiny chapters (each followed by helpful exercises) most everything one requires to write and see published their first book. If you are not familiar with the concepts used by artists you may find some instructions confusing. When you begin your opus only then will you begin to understand. Writing is an art and art defies being dissected and laid out like a pinned butterfly for non-artists to examine. Like every literate person on planet Earth, I have plans to write and Chapter after Chapter could certainly, dare I say will be, used to transform those vague notions into my first book. In Part 1, Your Writing Wings: Surveying the Book-Writing Terrain, we find fifteen chapters that prepare us to write. The only argument I have is with chapter 4 in which she explains that first we must read one-hundred books like the one we are going to write. At my current reading rate that would add another eight years to my endeavor. I searched my vast personal library, and although there are still six huge cartons labeled "books" to unpack, I could locate only three titles like the books I want to write. Those three tomes being: Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, David Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Ralph Leighton's autobiography of Dr.Richard Feynman What Do You Care What Other People Think?" Myself, at half a century and having read into the low thousand-count of books, believe I already possess enough literary background. Part 2 gets us ready to write, and Part 3 gets us published and seated in the chair to the right of Jay Leno <grin>. These three parts are then followed by seven pages of suggested books for writers, with the so welcome bonus that she includes a paragraph about each book. What stops so many writers? One, not starting, two, not writing every single day, and three not toughing it out through the waves of doubts, rewrites and editing.

p.s. I have not yet written a book. However, when our programming company 'went away' and while I was continuing to perform my duties as an owner/manager of a small fifty-person business, I did write an entire user manual for the custom business software they had been developing. This was an immense undertaking. As was Ms. Sellers' assignment in completing this concise, compact, truthful, encouraging and  upbeat writers' guide. As a person who has had to crawl through keyboard inputs, entry by entry, to uncover how a specific task is accomplished, and then to communicate those instructions to others through the printed word, I thank her and I congratulate her on completing Chapter after Chapter.

Begun: 02/12/2007   Finished: 02/18/2007 Purchased: February 2007
Where: writersdigestbookclub.com
B&N Net Rank: NA

"Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were not the lone conspirators in the Oklahoma City bombing—the attack that killed nearly 170 people in a few short seconds. They were part of a greater scheme, one which involved Islamic terrorists and at least one provable link to Iraq. This book, written by the relentless reporter who first broke the story of the Mideast connection, is filled with new revelations about the case and explains in full detail the complete, and so far untold, story behind the failed investigation—why the FBI closed the door, what further evidence exists to prove the Iraqi connection, why it has been ignored, and what makes it more relevant now than ever ... "

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

I know what you're thinking: "Another book by a conspiracy nut." Not so Sherlock. The Third Terrorist written over a period of almost a decade, enjoys three hundred thirteen pages of eye-squinting tiny font, trailed by thirty-five pages of footnotes and five index pages, permitting author Jayna Davis sufficient territory to make her point, and that is that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols did not operate in a vacuum. Thankfully, the over seven hundred footnotes have no corresponding reference numbers in the text. This author's consideration allows the reader to peruse them at her leisure. On April 20th 1995, the day after the Oklahoma bombing, who does not remember the frantic search for the Middle Eastern appearing John Doe #2? And who does not also recall the odd way in which this suspected suspect immediately faded from the sights of the FBI and the glare of the major news media? If you're like me, you were probably and purposely led to believe that the huge fertilizer-bomb used in the Oklahoma explosion was a contraption anyone could engineer. In actuality, these types of devices are not something any military surplus groupie could cobble together behind a bowling alley. The author claims the Oklahoma City Bombing as being sponsored by a Middle-Eastern government. However, I believe her tie to Saddam Hussein being behind it is tenuous. But the link is so slim, precisely because, as documented in page after page in the book, the FBI would not cooperate with Ms.Davis and was often enough, by leaking half-truths, virtually working against the flow of her investigation. The reason given that the FBI refused to accept the author's voluminous evidence proposing the Middle East connection, the physical person of John Doe #2 (a former Iraqi intelligence officer under Hussein) and twenty-three eye-witness accounts, is that her documents would have complicated their slam dunk case against Timothy McVeigh. I realize that today, in February of 2007, her accusation sounds incredible, but as we now know, in 1995 'avoiding complications' was the modus operandi of the Bill and Hillary regime. Recall that during those times, the Clinton Administration was busily defending itself on numerous complicated domestic fronts. From the murder of Vince Foster and the oddly coincidental passing of forty-eight Clinton colleagues (from Buddy the dog to Ron Brown) to the death of presidential spermatozoa on a blue dress and threatened impeachment by the House of Representatives. Finally, facing a certain death sentence, why wouldn't the Twentieth Century's second most famous 'patsy' (the first being Lee Harvey Oswald), Timothy McVeigh, confess to the intimate involvement of Middle Eastern terrorists? For that, you'll have to read Fox News  show host John Gibson's explanation on page three hundred ten.

Begun: 01/24/2007   Finished: 02/07/2007 Purchased: December 2006
Where: zooba.com
B&N Net Rank: 65,718

"New York City, towards the end of the twentieth century ... Midtown Manhattan had become an entrenched, isolated fortress, surrounded by a jungle of violence and seething revolt. Crime and perversion had become the city's last tourist attractions. Central Park after dark was designated a 'frepoint' -- a place where murder for kicks was legal. And out in the harbor, converted aircraft carriers housed the 'Pleasure Domes' -- places where any kind of sexual gratification, animal, human, or synthetic, could be had for a price ... "

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

At 163 yellowed-stippled-edged pages Gomorrah was a quick read. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure exactly why I picked it up at the library used book sale. Written in 1974, the work tells of a year 2000 New York City where the Twin Towers still stand with huge areas of the metropolitan area as being taken over by the cast-off citizens known as Dregs. Central Park is a place where, after dark, killing is viewed as a sport and legal. There are government taxed 'Pleasure Domes' situated on an old aircraft carrier where any vice may be satiated, including, gasp, both bi-sexual and homosexual sex. No fantastic gadgets are portrayed, oh, there are a few, but nothing worth pointing out. Mentioned is the "... Unknown Sniper (who) mowed down ten innocent people last year." Which far predated and predicted both Washington D.C.'s and Phoenix, Arizona's cowardly rifle-armed killers. The authors missed on the disrepute smoking has fallen into, as many character's imbibed in the noxious habit. Gomorrah centers around a kidnapping, if it really was a kidnapping, and who did it. I've a feeling the book was published as a favor by Doubleday, since it appears that the joint authors', Marvin Karlins and Lewis M. Andrews, specialties lay in non-fiction publications, which is where they should have confined themselves to.

"When people ask me what I did during the war, I tell them I used to be in a tank regiment. Or maybe I was a counter-intelligence agent. I'm not exactly sure: my memory isn't what it used to be." "When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn't take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It's the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees' personalities and target historians. The civil war is over and Robin has been demobilized, but someone wants him out of the picture because of something his earlier self knew. On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse ... "

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

I was recently complaining about how far off science fiction writers turned out to be when the 'future' became 'now'. I cannot do that with the writing of Charles Stross. He is so far ahead, I couldn't comprehend more than a few of his devices, often becoming confused as to why and what was happening. And since it was a fiction book, read for fun, rather than a non-fiction work, read for learning, I didn't have the ambition to back-track to see if I could figure out what was going on. Don't get me wrong, Glasshouse is not the work of some hack, it is very well written and concerns situations which any SciFi reader would find interesting if not compelling. Some of the revelations, far back in the book, concern names mentioned a dozen or more chapters earlier, mandating the reader to page back and see who whats-his-name-was before he became a she. What I found extremely intriguing was the limitations felt by a man who had involuntarily been morphed into a woman ... thankfully the sex scenes weren't too graphic. Glasshouse is an easy read, and best read, for easy comprehension, in a single sitting <grin>. As I was pelted with more flashbacks than Bob Hope on his deathbed, several times I lost track of what was happening, who was who, and where exactly the character was. As a matter of fact, I can't tell you what the climax of the book revealed. Which is good, because that way I cannot spoil it for you.

Begun: 12/26/2006   Finished: 01/19/2007 Purchased: October 2006
Where: sfbc.com
B&N Net Rank: 51,284

"The irreducible strangeness of the universe was first made manifest to Anthony Van Horne on his fiftieth birthday, when a despondent angel named Raphael, a being with luminous white wings and a halo that blinked on and off like a neon quoit, appeared and told him of the days to come. What Raphael tells Van Horne is that God, for unknown reasons, has died. 'Died and fell into the sea.' Soon Van Horne is charged with captaining the supertanker Carpco Valparaiso (flying the colors of the Vatican) as it tows the two-mile-long divine corpse through the Atlantic - northward, toward the Arctic, in order to preserve Him from sharks and decomposition. Van Horne must also contend with ecological guilt, a militant girlfriend, a father who won't talk to him, sabotage both natural and spiritual, a crew on (and sometimes past) the brink of mutiny, and greedy hucksters of oil, condoms, and doubtful ideas."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

How fitting was it that I finished this book on Christmas Day? Having survived two theopanies, your Mr. Wonderful has no doubt of the existence of the God of the Jews ... either that or I'm loonier than Joan 'de Arc. Towing Jehovah by author James Morrow, at 371 pages, is a remarkable book for both its quality of prose and the breadth of its subject: the death of Jehovah-God. For those foolish readers who continue to believe in this God, you should have no fear that Towing Jehovah will rattle or in any way challenge your beliefs. The story begins with the failed supertanker captain Anthony Van Horne being asked by the dying angel Raphael (and subsequently hired and funded by the Vatican) to locate and then tow, using the planet's largest supertanker, the two-mile-long body of God to cold storage in an immense cave previously carved by His angels. Unlike some 'God is Dead' writings, author Morrow insists on capitalizing all mentions of God's name or pronoun. I'm not sure if this is out of respect or simply to sustain the gravity of the situation, that is: the Creator's death. The first few chapters had me gut laughing so hard that I halted my reading and jumped on the internet to purchase a new copy (mine was gotten used from Powells.com) for my book-a-day-reader daughter. Soon, however, the story settled down to both serious work and serious questions with the humor-otter only occasionally poking his head out, all the while continuing with delightful prose, interesting characters, compelling action and climaxing with a satisfying ending. Including my bold caveat below, I can say that Towing Jehovah is one of the best works of fiction I have ever read.

Begun: 12/10/2006   Finished: 12/25/2006 Purchased: August 2006
Where: Powells.com
B&N Net Rank: 115,062

"It's World War II and the A-bomb is here to stay. The only question: Who's going to drop it first? The Battle of Midway takes on a whole new dimension with the sudden appearance of a U.S.-led naval task force from the twenty-first century, the result of a botched military experiment. State-of-the-art warships are scattered across the Pacific, armed to the teeth with the latest instruments of mass destruction. Nuclear warheads, rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s, computer-guided missiles-all bets are off as the major powers of 1942 scramble to be the first to wield the weapons of tomorrow against their enemies. The whole world now knows of the Allied victory in 1945, and the collapse of communism decades later. But that was the first time around. With the benefit of their newly acquired knowledge, Stalin and Hitler rapidly change strategies."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Designated Targets penned by author John Birmingham, is a well-written, easily read 367 paged book. (Don't let my 'reading time' of over two months mislead you, because this was a book I read in bed. A page at a time.) Having recently read and/or listened several books about World War II, Mr. Birmingham's details of that conflict, which claimed the lives of 420,000 American servicemen and women, seemed correct. Far too many pages were devoted to the totally unproven rumor that FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover and his right hand man, Clyde Tolson, were a homosexual couple. As a matter of fact, in this book, everyone knew  they were butt-lovers. I guffawed when I read there was a 21st Century aircraft carrier named the Clinton  and upon hearing she was being taken away from him, a character thought "... that she'd be back one day, kicking butt and taking names, just like her namesake." First aircraft carrier named after a senator? The writer seems enamored with the undeniable wisdom of a multi-national force and this attraction is understandable when I discovered he is from Australia. A country that currently fields an army about the size of the New York City Police Department. (Reading 1993's Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War will quickly disabuse anyone that a multi-national force is anything but a political, not military solution, to any armed conflict.) On page 88, amid the horrors and danger of World War II, a 21st Century soldier ponders the "dangers of secondary smoke" as General MacArthur sucked on his unlit pipe. And on page 93, the author has the WWII soldiers attempting to save the Japanese whose ship they had just sank while the 21st Century serviceman matter-of-factly machineguns them while they are floating and helpless in the water. In real life, it certainly would have been the other way around. And naturally, the most potent weapon to make it through 'The Transition' is the HMS Trident, a 140mph cruiser commanded of course, by a woman with an Arabic-sounding name. All the while I was reading the book, I was also wondering why someone who hated war, would write and profit off of a book about war?

Begun: 10/05/2006   Finished: 12/10/2006 Purchased: August 2006
Where: zooba.com
B&N Net Rank: 27,776

A masterpiece of twentieth-century writing, Heart of Darkness (1902) exposes the tenuous fabric that holds "civilization" together and the brutal horror at the center of European colonialism. Conrad's crowning achievement recounts Marlow's physical and psychological journey deep into the heart of the Belgian Congo in search of the mysterious trader Kurtz. Joyce Carol Oates on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: Heart of Darkness has had an influence that goes beyond the specifically literary. This parable of a man's 'heart of darkness' dramatized in the alleged 'Dark Continent' of Africa transcended its late Victorian era to acquire the stature of one of the great, if troubling, visionary works of western civilization."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

(I suppose the review above will have to suffice, as I'm not quite certain what the book was about. At the time I read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness I was in the midst of a battle amongst several mind and bowel altering prescription drugs. I assume that pock-marked, burned and barren brain battlefield had and has something to do with both my memory and my comprehension of this classic novel.)

With these sentences I re-read today, that I had highlighted during my reading one week ago, I will end my review:

"He was the only man of us who still 'followed the sea.' The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seaman lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them--the ship; and so is their country--the sea."

Begun: 10/31/2006   Finished: 11/08/2006 Purchased: 09/14/2006
Where: Daedalus Books
B&N Net Rank: 4,601

"A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright’s remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, John O’Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal."

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

This is a book both Liberals and Conservatives can enjoy. That is because author Lawrence Wright has meticulously avoided placing blame on either political party or any specific administration. However, that is not to say he does not lay blame. His aim was to explain the facts and the history engulfing al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attack. He does so in such an interesting and enjoyable manner that the only reason one might set down The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 is simply because of its sheer bulk. This 470-paged hardback begins with an often referred to map of the Middle East and ends with footnotes stretching over forty pages, an eight page lay-out featuring the "Principal Characters", a nine page bibliography, a half-dozen page list of interviews the author conducted, a six page "Aknowledgment and Notes and Sources" section with the book wrapping up with the usual number of "Index" pages. The body of the The Looming Tower covers some 383 pages, not including the sixteen pages of excellent black and white photographs, backed up by almost 100 pages of footnotes and such, evidences a book obviously well-researched. Have no fear anti-footnote fans, because author Wright, other than placing the rare smaller-font footnote sentences on the page itself, there are none of the superscripted "1", "2", "3", to drive you batty while reading. All the notes are in the final pages and it is up to the reader to remember to occasionally flip back and read only those of interest. The book delves into the history of Islam, Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda. It ventures into Afghanistan, the Taliban, the Sudan and even elucidates exactly why Germany is a haven for international terrorists. It reveals how closely tied the bin Laden family was to the ruling family of Saud; with Mohammed bin Ladin (Osama's father) once having loaned the government money to pay the bills. (Conspiracy fans note that in March of 1994 Osama bin Laden's Saudi Arabian citizenship was revoked and he was forced to personally hand-over his Saudi passport.) The book explains the Quran as it was written and how 'fundamentalist' Muslims such as Sayyid Qutb, Osama bin Laden and others have perverted and rewritten it for their own nefarious and murderous purposes. It defines the meaning and the source of such unknown-to-Americans words as jahiliyya, muttawa, Sharia, and the Mahdi. It documents that Osama did little actual fighting in Afghanistan and how most Arab radicals who traveled there to battle were told to go home by the leaders of the Afghan Northern Alliance. But most of all, the book leaves little doubt of the fact that between the NSA, the CIA and the FBI, enough was known that the 9/11 Tragedy might have been averted. However due to inter-agency rivalries, towering egos fueled by too much testosterone, and a vaguely written federal law, thousands of individuals perished and billions of dollars were consumed. If you cannot decide on which book to read in order to educate yourself about al-Qaeda, the foundations of the 9/11 tragedy, the War on Terror and basic Muslim beliefs, I can assure you this is the one.

Begun: 09/23/2006   Finished: 10/25/2006 Purchased: 09/18/2006
Where: barnesandnoble.com
B&N Net Rank: 72

Back to MW Review of Books