Review of The Best Seats In The House And Other Stories (Western Literature Series) (Hardcover)

Read this book!One of the best short story collections published in a decade.
There is not a single weak link in THE BEST SEATS IN THE HOUSE.It is rare to accomplish in one story what Morris achieves in every story here.There is resounding psychological depth in his depictions of characters who have held off their deepest feelings for too long and are, at last, overtaken by them.
Each passage is surprisingly, quietly moving, whether the story is about lost love ("Losing Julia Finch"), or about the disappearance of a life plan and the appearance of another ("Objects Past the Shoreline" and "The Children of Dead State Troopers"), or about the raptures and unbearable pressures of family ("The Best Seats in the House"
and "Astronauts").

Product Description
Ten short stories by a powerful new voice in fiction.The men who inhabit the stories in this compelling collection live in precarious normalcy, mostly in northern Idaho, balancing dashed dreams with an uncertain progress into maturity, small-town realities with their largely unfulfilled hopes for lives that are somehow vaster than what they have. It is due to Keith Lee Morris's superb gift of giving such eloquent voices to his characters that we cherish their unique humanity and believe completely in the bewildering complexities that lie just beneath the placid surface of their yearning workaday lives.In "The Best Seats in the House," a failed high-school athlete watches as his more gifted son falls under the spell of his charismatic father, a retired coach who "could make people hope . . . that something would be made from nothing." The conflict between the narrator's own lost ambitions and his fear that his son is being set up to fail reveal in unforgettable fashion the painful tensions of parental love.

In "Objects Past the Shoreline," a young man in the process of losing his sight struggles to accept the irrevocability of blindness while clinging to what independence remains. He spends his days reading poetry and exploring the world around him: "I went up close to see-Indian paintbrush, the thick buds scarlet and dusty. I closed my eyes and searched for the flowers' imprint, for the red scar the buds would cut across the blackness." Gradually, the world darkens around him, leading the story to a conclusion of wrenching poignancy.Morris is a writer of remarkable skill, and these stories of small-town men groping for a perspective on themselves and the lives they've come to live are among the most powerful in contemporary fiction. This is the work of a major talent coming into his prime.

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Review of From the Passages of Revenants (The Dark Verse, Volume I) (Imitation Leather) (Hardcover)

Everything about this book is great!Starting at the appearance alone, the book's cover and binding leave the reader with an ominous feeling.Loved the stories, loved the book, delivery was great, could not ask for a better book.

Product Description
Twenty-six short tales of fantastical horror that will follow you to the visions of your sleep. The stories in this book have been taken from the episodes of Sharkchild's podcast, The Dark Verse, and have since been edited and revised.

The cover of the book is imitation leather with foil stamping on the front, back, and spine; there is no dust cover. All three sides of the pages have black dusting. The artwork in its entirety was created by John F. Stifter, including an illustration on the title page of each story.

Contents
The Unlike Light
Becoming the Sky
What the Flesh Cannot Keep
Gift of the Crossroads
The Changing Feyth - Part 1
The Bearer of All That Can Be Felt
Between the Corridors
The Phoenix Imago
The Chambers of Nature's Machines
The Changing Feyth - Part 2
Sounds of the Deliverer
Dealer of Fate
The Missing Come Home
The Captive Inside
Bringing Back the Unordinary
Time into Death
The Science of Faith
Normal Faces
Names: Unsonselvitzsol
Names: Tillalel
Names: Feltfoldhart
Finding the Host That Sustains
The Skulker
The Coming of the Unexpected
Character Feast
The Something Beyond Silence

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Review of My Last Movie Star: A Novel of Hollywood (Hardcover)

...and it turns out it goes down a little too smoothly.If you've ever wondered what it might be like to suddenly have the world's celebrity spotlight searching you relentlessly out, My Last Movie Star is a must read.

This book, about a cynical celebrity journalist who accidentally crosses over to become a celebrity in her own right, gives hilarious insight into the seductive but ephemeral allure of sudden fame.

My favorite sub-theme is the author's biting description of the self-important self-adulation of movieland's beautiful elite.The story's protagonist, Clementine James, ends up making some surprising choices when she is thrust into the glare of Hollywood's klieg lights.

One of the inventions that makes this book an original and a great read is the way the writer effortlessly weaves in appearances from the spirits of formerly-exalted-but-now-forgotten movie divas.You'll find out why Demi Moore named her unfortunate daughter Tallulah, among other tidbits.

MLMS will appeal to the serious movie buff, as well as anyone who has wondered about the ridiculous--and lucrative-- conniving that goes on behind the fame-making machine.

Hilarious.Entertaining.Soon to be made into a major motion picture, no doubt directed by Robert Altman, with Renee Zellweger cast as Clementine and Tim Robbins as the manipulative publisher Ed.



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Review of Rocks That Float (Hardcover)

It takes a few chapters to really enter the world of the old mill village, but then you are hooked on it's cast of fascinating people.We see the community through the eyes of Jimmy, a newcomer to the neighborhood.From the narrator, we are privileged to learn far more about the people of Randleman Road than he ever can. The book is a great look at what becomes of a working class community after the mill closes, something that has happened all over the southeast.

Product Description
Retreating from divorce, geologist Jimmy Steverson buys a tiny mill house on Dillehay Pond. His real-estate agent is disgusted, his father observes that he's reliving summer camp, and his friends think of the place as a weekend fishing cabin. Jimmy likes walking out his back door to his own dock where his bass boat waits, but out his front door lies Randleman Road. The nine houses left isolated on the block after the construction of the super-highway are the remnants of a nineteenth-century Carolina mill village, and the people living in them are remnants, too. An arrest leaves one house vacant, and its unlikely new owner is Karen, a college professor whose life centers on a child with special needs. Karen rebuilds her house and her life, and she anchors Jimmy to the block.

But the world Jimmy's moved into has its own rules, its own language. Across the pond, Totch runs a barbecue place, which is legally a gift shop because Totch can't get a license to run a restaurant; buying an old postcard translates to ordering a beer. Next door lives Mayme Boulineaux, who has no health department permit to sell her popular breakfast breads, known locally and phonetically as "bolenoes," so they're sold in shoeboxes for cash that never enters a cash register. Vivia Wardlaw makes a living at her sewing machine, sending little girls off to beauty pageants in opulent dresses, while she herself is scared to leave her house. Cone Duffy spent his life in the mill and now is buy dying, nursed by his wife Fairy Etta, both as much in love as when they were youths.

The web of neighbor-helping-neighbor is a comfortable net to be caught in, and lax law enforcement is a lure to a young man with marijuana in his kitchen cabinet. Asked to break a rule he can't break, Jimmy forces himself to leave the false security of Randleman Road, and once again become a refugee.

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Review of Conscious Style Home: Eco-Friendly Living for the 21st Century (Hardcover)

Well, I've never gone to amazon and submitted a review, but I felt compelled to after reading Conscious Style. I am renovating my 19th century farmhouse and found great, simple tips in this book we are using RIGHT NOW! Bamboo flooring is great. Recycled glass tile is amazing. Toxic-free paints have no odor! My only complaint is that there aren't enough color photos...but the 200 photos are beautiful.

Product Description
That is the essence of Danny Seo's Conscious Style philosophy. As a leading environmentalist, Seo believes it doesn't take much time, effort or money to make a difference in the world.It's the small choices we make everyday-from what we wear to what we furnish our homes with-that have a tremendous impact. In this gorgeously illustrated book, Seo describes hundreds of unique, readily available products and easy projects to help you create a comfortable, elegant living space without harming the planet.

In Conscious Style Home, Seo transforms his parents' suburban home. Recycled paint in gorgeous colors brightens the rooms; bamboo blinds allow plenty of natural light; simple white canvas and hemp slipcovers give sofas and chairs a face-lift; recycled glass tiles accent the bathroom; luxurious organic cotton sheets and fluffy comforters stuffed with EcoSpun (made from recycled bottles) make the bedrooms a sanctuary.

So, whether you're planning to paint a wall, re-decorate a cluttered office, plant a garden, re-do the kitchen, or buy a new comforter, Conscious Style Home is an invaluable resource packed with easy projects, creative ideas and suggestions for enhancing your living space, indoors and out.


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Review of Blue's World of Words (Hardcover)

Beautiful book. I saw first at the library
and then I bought this in Amazon. It is really
cute and explain all the things around the
house,bedtime, seasons and school.

Product Description

Who knows words?
Blue knows words, and so will you!

From Blue's house to her school, and all the places she goes each day, help Blue find words around her world. Includes more than 500 words inside -- find something new each time!

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Review of Saturday Nights with Daddy at the Opry (Hardcover)

Saturday Nights With Daddy at The Opry by artist, writer, and photographer Libby Leverett-Crew is the biographical story of country music photographer Les Leverett as told by his daughter. As a little girl, Libby's father would take her along with him on his job as the official photographer for the Grand Ole Opry -- a position he held for over 30 years. This is not only a tribute to her father but also to the people (ranging from Dolly Parton and Minnie Pearl to Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe) who touched the lives of her family and the powerful impact a loving father has on the formative life of his daughter. Enhanced with more than a hundred photographs from her father, Saturday Nights With Daddy At The Opry is enthusiastically recommended reading -- especially for dedicated fans of the Grand Ole Opry.

Product Description

Saturday Nights With Daddy at the Opry is both the story of growing up with a backstage pass to the entertainment world in Nashville as well as a heartwarming tale of a beautiful father-daughter relationship.

From the time she was a baby, Les Leverett, who was the official photographer for the Grand Ole Opry took his daughter, Libby, with him each Saturday evening to witness country music's greatest entertainers. Sometimes Libby carried his equipment, sometimes she played with the other children of Opry performers, but she was always observing.

Now some 40 years later, Libby Leverett-Crew touchingly remembers those Saturday nights with Minnie Pearl, Tex Ritter, Grandpa Jones, Roy Acuff, Dolly Parton, Porter Waggoner, Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, along with a few astronauts, muppets, ballet dancers, actors and actresses, and with Andy Warhol and kd lang thrown in.

Saturday Nights with Daddy at the Opry is a celebration of music and family--incredibly well written from one lucky daughter's perspective. Includes more than 100 photographs by Les Leverett.

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