FIGHTER PILOT'S SUMMER: Sequal to the Best-Selling Fighter Pilot

Book Description

Unknown to almost everyone Paul Richey started this sequel to his acclaimed book Fighter Pilot in 1941, but was unable to continue it beyond the initial chapters. Now, aviation author and historian Norman Franks, by gaining exclusive access to Paul's papers and diaries, has completed the work.

Richey, despite being seriously wounded in the Battle of Britain, returned to fly a tour of operations from RAF Biggin Hill in 1941 as a flight commander in 609 (West Riding) Squadron, RAuxAF, and gain a bar to the DFC he won in France. Fighter Pilot's Summer is the story not only of 609 Squadron's offensive war during that momentous summer, but also of Paul's exploits to the end of the war at Fighter Command HQ and then in India and Burma.

Customer Reviews:

A book of two parts.......2007-02-07

As Fighter Pilot, Commander Richeys first book on his experiences as an RAF pilot in France in the pre Dunkirk period, is a classic and one of my all time favourites, I was happy to see that he had finally done a sequel. However it has one huge problem, unfortunately the Commander passed away before he'd finished much more than the first seven chapters and whilst this is written in the same engaging informative style as used in Fighter Pilot. The rest of the book is pretty much a biography written by Norman Franks and though informative, is very dry and it depends rather too much on dates and statistics.
It is still an extremely good book, but the sudden transition between the two authors and they're contrasting writing styles is a bit jarring. Those who have read and loved Fighter Pilot will want to read this volume as well, but as a stand alone book it has unfortunately been marred by unavoidable circumstance.

Book Description

This work presents the life history of a philosopher who experienced severe, recurrent, and misdiagnosed mental disorder. The compelling narrative portrays the father’s seventy-five years: his childhood and adolescence, his high levels of achievement, intermixed with recurrent episodes and brutal hospitalizations, his marriage and family life, his tenderness as a father, and his gradual decline following years of maltreated bipolar disorder. Themes of self-image, resilience, causes of serious mental disorder, accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment, and linkages between social context and mental disturbance are intermixed with the narrative. Alternately harrowing and uplifting, this work captures the experience of growing up in a family with severe mental illness as well as the courage and dignity that can emanate from mental disorder. This poignant work will be of strong interest to the public at large and to those in the mental health fields.

Customer Reviews:

More than a biography.......2005-04-20

As the other reviews here accurately explain, this slim volume encompasses much more than an insightful look at how his father's long-misdiagnosed mental illness affected the author and his family. That would be quite enough. Yet, while some scholarly writers have one idea and repeat it volume after volume, Hinshaw deftly delivers much more than the title suggests, weaving autobiography and biography, this country's rather checkered history of diagnosing and treating bi-polar disorder, the genetic and environmental factors of brain disorders, and much more.

That he does so cogently and compellingly for the layperson stands out as notable because he is a professor who chairs the prestigious department of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leading scholar of issues related to attention deficits and other child disorders. As a lay volunteer in the AD/HD community, that is how I first learned of Dr. Hinshaw. It is rare to find a psychologist who can help the average person bridge the knowledge gap between behavior and neuroscience, and I am grateful for his work.

A rare portrait of human development.......2003-05-02

Stephen Hinshaw demonstrated exceptional courage and scholarship in this passionately written portrayal of his father's struggle with bipolar disorder. Blending scientific perspectives with personal insights, Hinshaw provides a tour of his father's obstacles and triumphs. It is a compelling story about the far reaching implications of severe psychopathology yet it is firmly rooted in inspiring messages of hope and resilience. Hinshaw somehow manages to find the appropriate "voice" with personal accounts narrated within a larger context of science, philosophy, and public policy. It is exemplary in its passion, analysis, and vision for the future.

an excellent bipolar biography.......2003-03-18

This is an excellent book that anyone interested in bipolar disorder or mental illness in general should read. Hinshaw is an excellent writer and brings the details of his father's struggle with bipolar disorder richly to life. The effects of the disease on his father's entire existence are profound and complex- many details and nuances of the illness are described. The book is partly an indictment of the entire mental health field for not providing better care for his father. An interesting and complex read. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".

Get This Book for Everyone You Know.......2002-11-07

This is one of the best books on any topic I have read lately. Anyone who knows anyone with a psychological problem (that's all of you with a pulse, by the way), should read The Years of Silence are Past. The title refers to the silence that descended on Stephen Hinshaw's family in the face of his father's bipolar illness (manic-depression). The book is so resonant because countless families with a mentally ill family member live with the same deafening silence. Hinshaw manages to tell the story of his father's battle with bipolar disorder in a compelling, compassionate, unflinching way while also communicating clearly and thus educating about this devastating illness. This book puts a human face on a problem that is too often still stigmatized in our society. I hope this book will help put an end to the collective silence that amplifies the stigma and associated pain for people with mental illness and their famlies. I also hope it leads people with mental illness to seek and benefit from treatment.

Deadlines Past: Forty Years Of Presidential Campaigning: A Reporter's Story

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Want News? Miss This Deadline
A "front row seat" on 40 years of presidential campaigns
Presidential Campaign Reporting At Its Best
Great chronicle of presidential politics

Deadlines Past: Forty Years Of Presidential Campaigning: A Reporter's Story
Walter Mears
Manufacturer: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Walter Mears had an insider"s edge"and he made the most of it by serving newspapers and their readers around the country with some of the best presidential campaign coverage to see print. The Pulitzer Prize winner also witnessed enough of "the oddities, inside stuff, and impressions" during his 45-year Associated Press career that he ended up with a treasury of American politics and the forces that shaped them.Fortunately, in Deadlines Past Mears finally commits his unwritten stories to paper. Readers are richly rewarded by his focus on the 11 campaigns he covered, campaigns that altered the way American presidents are nominated and elected, and how the media told the tales along the way. The changes were gradual from Nixon versus Kennedy through Bush versus Gore, but the historical significance of each matchup becomes very evident in Mears"s detailed and engrossing narrative.This poignant political recounting is illuminated by personal experiences and the observations of one of the finest AP reporters to ever file a story. Yet Mears never preaches any viewpoint about candidates or campaign history. He tells readers what he thought at the time, without telling them what to think. The results are a richly woven fabric of fact and reflection made by a penetrating eyewitness with nearly unlimited access to his subjects.Deadlines Past is destined to become a classic in the political genre, one of the most compelling examples of a hard-news reporter"s life, and a captivating view of 40 years of American history.

Customer Reviews:

Want News? Miss This Deadline.......2005-09-10

Deadlines Past is a solid, occasionally insightful look at four decades of Presidential campaigns. But it left me wanting more.

Since Mears was an AP reporter or columnist for most of his professional life, it's no wonder Deadlines Past reads more like a long news account than a novel. That is to say it's lacking much of the gossip or inside news that never made newsprint. In that regard, the book was a disappointment. I expected that someone with the access of an AP reporter would have more to share than what he already reported.

I also expected that Mears might pull back the curtain a little more on the how and why certain stories become "big" and others don't. While he talked a bit about it, it's almost as if Mears himself was an observer of the phenomenon instead of a player in it.

In spite of missing what the book could have been, it's still a fascinating historical record of presidential politics. Not many people alive can compare John Kennedy's campaign personality with Al Gore's. Or Dole with Goldwater. I'd be lying if I said I didn't learn things about the men and their campaigns.

If you're looking for scandal or an examination of the media itself, miss this deadline. Mears just doesn't deliver.

But if you're interested more in a complete, one stop shopping for what happened in the last half of the twentieth century's presidential campaigns, it hits that mark well.

A "front row seat" on 40 years of presidential campaigns.......2005-04-17

I recall reading and appreciating Theodore H. White's The Making of the President, 1960. Since then, I have read dozens of other books about that and subsequent campaigns as well as countless studies of those who have served as President. That said, I consider Mears's Deadlines Past among the most informative as well as most entertaining. In it, he examines his 40-year career as a reporter who rose within the ranks of the Associated Press organization, eventually serving as the AP's bureau chief in Washington. He retired after the inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001. Of special significance to me is that he had a unique advantage over almost everyone else assigned to cover the White House and its most important occupant: Unlike counterparts from individual newspapers as well as radio and television networks, Mears represented a service organization which distributed reports to its subscribers throughout the world. As a result, the nature and extent of his access to the Oval Office were greater than almost any other journalist's. Here is a representative sample of what he observed and, more importantly, what he thought about a given politician, issue, or event.

"Sometimes politicians do lie and misbehave, although probably no more often than people in business or lawyers or, for that matter, journalists. But most of the politicians I covered ran for office because they thoughts they could achieve change for the better, not purely for power and surely not for money, although wealth came to some of them because they held or had held office. That's not to say that they did not relish power. Power translates into the ability to do what a candidate believes should be done, and politicians are an ego-driven lot, out to sell themselves on the public stage in ways that would embarrass most of us." (page 25)

In 1976, "...the improbable Democrat [Carter] beat the unelected Republican [Ford], but only narrowly. It was not surprising that Ford lost the 1976 election. That he came close to winning it was a political miracle for a humdrum Republican who had never run in an election outside of his Michigan congressional district, who came to the presidency because of his own party's scandal, and worsened his situation by Pardoning Nixon for Watergate crimes." (page 127)

"There had been rumblings from [Quayle's] detractors about dumping him in 1992, but Bush decreed long in advance that Quayle would absolutely be on his ticket. He'd produced a dossier of gaffes as vice president. I thought he peaked with his contorted attempt to recite the slogan of the United Negro College Fund. `What a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind, is being wasteful. How true it is." Yes, a mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste. His most convoluted sentences not withstanding, Quayle was no dummy. To borrow the line used against him in that 1988 debate: I knew Dan Quayle, Dan Quayle was a friend of mine. I thought he was a competent man and a competent senator who would have been better off had he stayed in the senate. He was better than his reputation and his worst lines, but in over his head as vice president." (pages 271-272)

"I had been writing columns for the AP for twelve years and I had one to go. I interviewed the first President-elect Bush for my first column in 1989 and the second President-elect Bush for my last in 2001. I asked each of them as he began what he would want said of him after his time in the White House. `I want to give it my best shot,' the elder Bush had said on the eve of his inauguration. `The presidency is still the place from which to lead and from which to effect change, hopefully for the better.' Same topic, new president. `I hope people will be able to say he was steady under fire, he was wise enough to listen to counsel and decisive enough to make a decision that made a positive difference,' George W. told me.

"With that final story it was time for me to go. I'd had a front row seat on national politics for forty years. It was exhilarating, exhausting, satisfying, tense, frustrating, and fun -- my ticket to see, hear, and write about winners and losers, flaws and failings, in the imperfect way of nominating and electing presidents."

There are literally several hundred other passages in this book from which I could also have selected a representative sample. Mears does everything possible to share with his reader the "front row seat" to which he refers. His intelligence and energy are soon obvious. Also his discretion and circumspection when sharing his own opinions about the "winners and losers, flaws and failings, in the imperfect way of nominating and electing presidents." Throughout this volume, especially after he had gained extensive experience covering the White House, he also indicates that he possessed what Hemingway once referred to as "a built-in, shock-proof crap detector."

For those who share my keen interest in presidential campaigns and, especially, in the key individuals involved with them, this is a "must read." I also highly recommend Hendrik Hertzberg's Politics: Observations & Arguments, 1966-2004, David C. Whitney's The American Presidents: Biographies of the Chief Executives from George Washington to George W. Bush, To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidents (revised) edited by James M. McPherson and David Rubel, and Paul F. Boller, Jr.'s Presidential Campaigns.

Presidential Campaign Reporting At Its Best.......2004-01-14

I am a political junkie- I love to hear stories about politics and in particular the people involved. I live in New Hampshire where it used to be that every four years we would have a new Presidential campaign. Now, of course, the campaigns start as soon as the President is sworn into office. In a past life I wonder if I was a reporter on "the beat".

Walter Mears tells his stories as an AP (Associated Press) reporter for the past 40 years. From 1955 until 2001 this man's words were seen daily in every American newspaper in the country. Thus he could be said to be the most influential political reporter of his time. He is in a sense the storyteller of the past. He tells the stories of the 11 presidential campaigns that he covered. He is a fascinating man, and I have read all the material available about him and his writing and speaking.

Walter Mears graduated from Middlebury and got a job straight away with the AP. He started in Boston and reported from a pay phone that was reserved for bookies. He was soon asked to cover the Legislature in Montpelier, Vermont. He had no training, it was on the job. He was told to report on the Legislature and that is what he did. He said recently that the AP job in Vermont was the job he loved the most. He eventually moved to the big time in Washington, D.C. and it is there that he retired from the AP in 2001.

In between, Walter Mears covered all the important campaigns of the past 45 years. He has stories of JF Kennedy- " that man kept his love life secret- there is no way that the press wouldn't have talked about it if we had known- it worked for him because he didn't let anybody know". The Nixon years, the Clinton years-Vietnam and Watergate changed attitudes about government coverage- it turned from skeptical trust to suspicion and cynicism. Bill Clinton made suspicion and trust of politicians worse by his misconduct and dishonesty. American citizens fed on the assumption that politicians are not to be trusted said Mears.
In 1977 Walter Mears won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting of the 1976 Presidential Campaign. The day after he won, everyone gathered around him to see what he was going too write- as he said "The next story is the news".

Walter Mears believes in his profession, loves it. His philosophy is "Let people know what is happening and then let them decide what to do about it." He loves the politicians he covers. He believes they are honest people, and they think they are doing good things whether they are or not.

Walter Mears is a reporter who does not give biased, opininated news, and he is despondent over the news celebrities on the cable channels that think they are delivering news. This is one hell of a book. I enjoyed every page- the stories he tells and the times he has had. This man has lived his life doing what he loved! An admirable man and an admirable book. prisrob

Great chronicle of presidential politics.......2003-10-03

Walter Mears crafts a compelling look at presidential politics from Kennedy to George W. Bush. His story does not contain the level of ego found in other books, and his behind the scenes stories and insights, and the history of American presidential politics, are worth a read.

Loving Mozart: A Past Life Memory of the Composer's Final Years

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A Book of Haunting Beauty
We hear only from the most courageous
A "must read"

Loving Mozart: A Past Life Memory of the Composer's Final Years
Mary Montano
Manufacturer: Cantus Verus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Connecting Link, July, 1995

It may be a while before hypnotic regression achieves mainstream acceptance, but Montano's own work in that area and the resultant Loving Mozart will certainly assist in its doing so. Loving Mozart adds an important dimension to the musical genius we know as Mozart and his devoted friend Franz Sussmayr. Captivating reading.

Customer Reviews:

A Book of Haunting Beauty.......2002-11-15

When I read this book four years ago it haunted me for a long time. The beauty of its prose and the lucidity of the author's memories lingered in the back of mind and in the recesses of my heart, adding a dimension to the character of a young man few people can say they understand. There are no portraits of Franz Süssmayr, no eye-witness accounts of what kind of person he was, or what his relationship with Mozart was really like. This book fills in those spaces to reveal a gifted, generous, tender-hearted man, who was a loyal friend to the end-and beyond.

Books that claim to have their basis in past-life recall are always met with ridicule because people who don't believe in reincarnation are not educated in the field and thus cannot comprehend all the profound implications of it, or the myriad beautiful possibilities that go along with it. Immature souls see life as black and white. Mature souls see life as an ocean of limitless color, light and shadow, tone and texture. This book is a creation of all these qualities.

I recently re-read Loving Mozart and I received more from it than I did after my first reading. Only when something contains the truth can it affect us this way-it touches our hearts again and again, regardless of how many times we pick it up, dust it off and allow it to take us into its private world. When truth is that palpable, we know it deep in our subconscious whether we recognize it or not, and assumed historical details lose their grasp. Ask any police detective if any ten people will remember an event the same way and the answer will be no. Mozart knew a great many people, some of whom were never allowed into his private life. Many of those people went on to write about him, and even they do not always agree on just what happened at the end of Mozart's life. We remember events from our own experience and inner reality, and history is written by the winners anyway. Franz Süssmayr was not one of the winners. The winners went on to create a Mozart that would appeal to charitable organizations and individuals-an eternal manchild, a composer who never struggled over a piece of music, but composed as easily as writing out a grocery list, an apollonian god.

Some critics of this book don't recognize that Loving Mozart is not a book about Mozart, but a book about the spiritual path of someone who simply loved, and acted out that love in a beautiful, selfless way. If that's not Truth I don't know what is.

We hear only from the most courageous.......2002-08-29

There are two kinds of people who claim famous past lives: total phonies, who are simply out to make themselves seem more important, and the rare genuine articles, who really do have some connection, direct or archetypical, with a historical figure.

How to tell which is which? Just ask the person this: "When you found out you were or knew so-and-so... how did you deal with the shock and the fear?" If they don't know what you're talking about, you have a genuine, garden-variety phony.

Real ones do what most of us would do in their situation: look in the mirror, think 'how could I have been THAT?', feel surreal and worry that maybe they are just crazy. When considering telling anyone, they worry about their reputations, their jobs, their relationships. They know about the phonies, the weekend Cleopatras, and they know what they will be called. They sometimes wish their memories would just go away.

We hear only from the most courageous of them.

_Loving Mozart_ was ten years in the making; ten years for the author to gather the information and the courage to publish. Wishful thinking simply doesn't take that long, and lusts after perfect experiences, not the painful, ambiguous, messy ones portrayed. Besides, if the author had the total freedom of fantasy, why not go the whole hog and claim to have been Mozart himself?

This book isn't about fame and glory anyway; it is about music, and about love. It is about loyalty, joy and a passion for creating beauty that transcend poverty, rejection and death. It is about the nature of souls and their multi-life connections and missions, and about how inspiration is drawn from the Divine.

If you firmly disbelieve in reincarnation you don't want to read it; it will just seem like airy-fairy nonsense, and the details that differ from history (as is inevitable, since people often remember the same events differently) will peck at you. If you can accept reincarnation as fantasy, you will be both moved and uplifted. If you accept reincarnation as reality, you will find much that is confirmatory -- and still be moved and uplifted. If you are undecided but open-minded, there is a lot to learn, and this deeply beautiful book will stay in your mind and heart for a long time after reading.

A "must read".......1999-12-18

for anyone who has ever stopped to wonder WHY one has these memories that just do not fit in one's current life. Also, this book gives some insight into Mozart as a person with talent, not the "man touched by God" as a recent A&E commentator claimed.

A Checkered Past: My 20 Years As Indy 500 Chief Steward

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A Checkered Past: My 20 Years As Indy 500 Chief Steward
Tom Binford
Manufacturer: Cornerstone Press Chicago
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1882859014

Echoes from the Past: Revisiting My World War II Journals Fifty Years Later

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Echoes from the Past: Revisiting My World War II Journals Fifty Years Later
Sten Gould
Manufacturer: Writer's Showcase Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0595088929

Book Description

three journals I had kept during World War II. In these yellowing pages, still covered and protected with 1944 brown paper grocery bags, I had hoped to find something about my youth that would, perhaps, illuminate and even explain the exciting journey I am, at the moment, slowly completing. Surprisingly, rereading my teen-age entries (written in blue-black Waterman’s ink and with lots of misspelling), this “older edition” was buoyed-up by the sensitivity and insight of his youthful counterpart.

When the war in Europe ended, and with our military converted to an Army of Occupation, we “young kids in uniform” had to make rapid psychological adjustments. Our focus changed from serving our country to, possibly, serving our own needs?

Sexuality rapidly rose to first place. The German girls were beautiful. Why fight it? I fell in love with a young woman whom my family would consider a Nazi. (Wasn’t every German a Nazi?) What was I going to do when I got back? Bring my girlfriend? Tell my Jewish parents and friends in the Bronx that despite the death camps the Germans could still be pretty nice, intelligent people...even loveable?

Young people reading this book will be impressed by how the thoughts of an 18-year old in 1944 are still vitally significant today. Older folks might learn to re-connect with the kid still within them.

The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years

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The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years

Manufacturer: Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Haunting Echoes of the Past!: OR (The Memoir of a 100 Year Old Rotten Kid)

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Haunting Echoes of the Past!: OR (The Memoir of a 100 Year Old Rotten Kid)
Nathan Anton
Manufacturer: 1st Books Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1403397937

Book Description

This book describes the author's birth in a gas lit railroad flat on the lower East side of Manhattan and beginning of a uniquely adventourous and dangerous life! Working at two and mostly left to his own devices, there were any number of daring escapades. Sixty humorous chapters completes a canvas of one life that survived the 20th Century.

The Journey: A Spiritual Autobiography Spanning Two Thousand Years

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The Journey: A Spiritual Autobiography Spanning Two Thousand Years
Mary Davies
Manufacturer: Exposure Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1846850908

Book Description

The author is a practising healer and past-life therapist who, in this book, has used six of her own past lives and her present life to weave a fascinating account of how the human soul evolves over the centuries, making mistakes and learning valuable lessons, and how the continuing process is a spiritual journey to the Cosmic Source of Divine Love. The style is conversational, deceptively easy to read, but containing deep wisdom.

Past Forgetting: Memoirs of the Hammer Years (Transaction Large Print Books)

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A gentleman speaks

Past Forgetting: Memoirs of the Hammer Years (Transaction Large Print Books)
Peter Cushing
Manufacturer: ISIS Large Print Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 185089261X

Customer Reviews:

A gentleman speaks.......2000-04-01

Peter Cushing is funny, frank and fascinating in the 2nd volume of his autobiography. Focusing almost exclusively on his life in the movies, his reminiscenses range from working as deranged scientists to Sherlock Holmes. Best remembered for his work with Hammer Studios and Christopher Lee this book will delight all those who have a soft spot for gothic horror and this late, great actor.

Past Forgetting: Memories of the Hammer Years (Isis Series)

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Past Forgetting: Memories of the Hammer Years (Isis Series)
Peter Cushing
Manufacturer: ISIS Audio Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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ASIN: 1850896186

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