The Place of the Swan

Book Description

The author of Sophie and the Rising Sun "streamlines her rich Southern style and creates a narrative as delicate as a line drawing" (USA Today)

A series of family tragedies leaves fourteen-year-old Dove, her younger sister, Molly, and their baby brother, Little Ellis, in the care of their stepmother, seventeen-year-old Crystal. Born into a hardscrabble world of poverty and abandonment, Dove must take on much of the responsibility for her siblings after Crystal turns to their Bible-thumping Aunt Bett for help.

When Molly's deadbeat blood father threatens to bring a custody suit, Crystal and Dove flee with the children to a secret refuge called Swan Place, where they meet a group of devout Black women who transform their lives in unusual and profound ways.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent!.......2007-06-11

This is the first Augusta Trobaugh novel that I've read. I am looking forward to reading others. This is a great little story. Young Dove is a darling character. This novel is an easy read with some real substance. It's great summer reading. I could not put this book down. I highly recommend it.

Another wonderful book by Augusta Trobaugh.......2005-04-25

SWAN PLACE by Augusta Trobaugh
April 24, 2005

I really enjoyed Augusta Trobaugh's SOPHIE AND THE RISING SUN, so I was excited to read SWAN PLACE, the story of Dove and her life of poverty in the Deep South. Told in Dove's voice, her story begins with the loss of her mother to cancer, her stepfather's next marriage to Crystal, a very pretty but very young girl, and what happens in their lives soon thereafter. The bulk of the story spans a year of Dove's life, as she writes and details their adventures and their stories of survival after her mother passes away.

I wasn't disappointed with this story. It's not action packed, but a lot does happen to Dove, her two younger siblings, and their brand new step mother, as they try to make ends meet after the loss of Dove's parents. Although it is Crystal that tries to take over as their parent and takes responsibility over them, it is really Dove that is the center of stability for this little family, and they get help along the way from family and friends. When they eventually move to Swan Place and live under the protection of Buzzard, the maid for the owners of the estate, their lives change for the better, and Dove and her siblings learn how a segment of the population lives, a world that does not live in poverty.

I gave this book a rating of four stars, mainly for the lovely way that Augusta Trobaugh writes. Filled with wonderful characters from the Deep South, SWAN PLACE is a book that the fan of Southern Lit will appreciate. While SOPHIE AND THE RISING SUN was the better novel, readers will not be disappointed in SWAN PLACE.

Love these southern stories........2003-12-11

Ms. Trobaugh just keeps writing these great southern stories. I've read & enjoyed all her books & eagerly await her latest in 2004. She surely knows her south & all about southern charm, grace & beauty.

Borrowed idea or common experience?.......2003-08-27

I would have felt differently about this book had I not first read "Secret Life of Bees". The first few pages nearly made me put it down, feeling that I knew the whole story already. And in truth, I did know it, although the details were different enough that I kept reading. "Bees" was a a much better book in terms of writing and character development, telling the age old story of making sense of the complexities of life. Trobaugh's "Praise Jerusalem" left me with the same sense of almost being memorable, but ending up being more of an also-ran. Copied or simply a variation on a common theme, there are worse ways to spend a few hours.

A Lovely Southern Story.......2003-07-02

Swan Place is the fourth of Augusta Trobaugh's novels I have read, relishing every sentence. The author continues to give us lovely stories of Southern women and their courage.
Dove, the protagonist of Swan Place, is a charming adolescent who has not yet come to realize her strength; she just does what has to be done as one challenge after another enters her young life. I would love to read of the grown up Dove to see what she becomes as an adult! Told with a strong sense of the importance of family support and love and sprinkled with southern idiomatic expressions, Troubaugh's novels show me glimpses of my own upbringing.

Customer Reviews:

I would buy from this seller again in a second.......2007-05-07

*FAST* delivery and easy to deal with, highly recommended seller, A++ (Thanks!!)

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Building to a finale in the "Star Commandos" series

Star Commandos: Pariah
P. M. Griffin
Manufacturer: Archebooks Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 159507015X

Book Description

The immortal space saga of the STAR COMMANDOS continues in this new chapter of the valiant Commando Unit featuring: Capt. Varn Tarl Sogan, Col. Islaen Connor, Capt. Jake Karmikel, Sgt. Bethe Danlo, and their faithful mascot, the Jadite, Bandit.

When their fighter, the Fairest Maid, develops mechanical problems, the Unit sets down on the watery planet of Elaine of Avalon. While making repairs, one in their company, the former Admiral Varn Tarl Sogan, War Prince of the Arcturian Empire, is none too welcome. Conspiracy is afoot to bring harm to Capt. Sogan and his comrades. Yet the greatest danger on Elaine of Avalon may not be its human inhabitants, but the monstrous creatures of its seas: the Barracands, two to three meter eating machines; and the over one-hundred foot Leviathan with teeth the size of sabers.

From every quarter the STAR COMMANDOS must defend one another from a hostile populace and a deadly environment if they are to escape back into the safety of space.

Customer Reviews:

Building to a finale in the "Star Commandos" series.......2004-11-06

The 11th and penultimate book in the STAR COMMANDOS series by P.M. Griffin, STAR COMMANDOS: PARIAH in a sense continues the work of WATCHDOGS OF SPACE (#10 in the series) by focusing in on one particular social problem that had been pushed to the back burner too many times by our heroes: virulent hatred and mindless violence or constant persecution against Commando-Captain Varnt Sogan because he 'looks like' one of the Federation's former Arcturian invaders.

(He actually IS one of the former Arcturian invaders, of course, but since we all know that he acted honorably and mercifully during the war and saved a Federation world at the expense of everything he held most dear, plus saving a number of other Federation worlds since joining the Commandos, it's no fun to watch him get kicked in the teeth, metaphorically speaking, by the people who owe him so much.)

This time around (unlike in, say, #3 MISSION UNDERGROUND) there was no 'mission' to take precedence over caring for our Commandos' own (no "planet-buster bomb" to be defused, etc.), but only friendships to be acknowledged, trusted, and finally purposefully nurtured, as a bulwark against the hatred of a few cowards. And, of course, new avenues to be explored for using their unique gifts and learning to truly enjoy the life and peace Islaen, Varn, Jake, Bethe (and Bandit) have worked so hard to protect.

The ending was clearly setting up some major resolutions and changes (no more "Bonanza Syndrome"-like stasis in regard to key relationships or "three-steps-forward-and-two-steps-back" or "dysfunctional universe's business as usual" for our heroes), and I was so eager to continue the story that it was hard to MAKE myself turn out the light and get a few hours sleep when I'd finished this book, rather than staying up the rest of the night reading the final volume, STAR COMMANDOS 12: WAR PRINCE.

If you've read P.M. Griffin's other novels set in this series or in the various fictional worlds of Andre Norton, you won't want to miss PARIAH. And if you've never read Griffin's works before, but grew up on Andre Norton, found a happy refuge in Anne McCaffrey, and have a great delight in the worlds of Lois McMaster Bujold and others, you should probably try the STAR COMMANDOS series -- some high quality escapism about midway between Norton and Bujold in style and sensibility.

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More than you may bargain for

Fundamentalisms Comprehended.

Fundamentalisms Comprehended (The Fundamentalism Project)

Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Ideologies | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books | Communism & Socialism | Radical Thought
General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Religion & Spirituality | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements (The Fundamentalism Project)

Fundamentalisms Observed (The Fundamentalism Project)

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Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance (The Fundamentalism Project)

Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms around the World (The Fundamentalism Project)

ASIN: 0226508889

Book Description

In this fifth volume of the Fundamentalism Project, Fundamentalisms Comprehended, the distinguished contributors return to and test the endeavor's beginning premise: that fundamentalisms in all faiths share certain "family resemblances." Several of the essays reconsider the project's original definition of fundamentalism as a reactive, absolutist, and comprehensive mode of anti-secular religious activism. The book concludes with a capstone statement by R. Scott Appleby, Emmanuel Sivan, and Gabriel Almond that builds upon the entire Fundamentalism Project. Identifying different categories of fundamentalist movements, and delineating four distinct patterns of fundamentalist behavior toward outsiders, this statement provides an explanatory framework for understanding and comparing fundamentalisms around the world.

Customer Reviews:

More than you may bargain for.......2007-09-10

I read the first volume of this Fundamentalism Project, Fundamentalisms Observed (The Fundamentalism Project), and this volume. The three intermediate valus may go into more detail than any layperson would desire, as do each of these two volumes I read. The benefit is that the material covered, as in Parts One and Five of this volume, seems worth the book's price to me. Nevertheless, it would be helpful to me if someone associated with the Fundamentalism Project were to write one or more books targetted to lay people based on the findings of the project.

Little of this book directly addresses North American Protestant Fundamentalisms: much of the book is about the generalized Fundamentalism presented in Volume 1 or about specific worldwide forms found in Latin American Christianities, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhs and other religions.

Part One centers on the notion of an "enclave culture" and that theme helps in understanding material presented in the rest of the book. But organizing as an enclave, while it makes sense when the group is relatively small, loses cohesive power as the group grows large, which observation may explain some of the divisiveness that has been noted in popular fundamentalist group.

Part 5 presents 4 patterns based on how the religion interacts with the world: world conqueror, world transformer, world creator and world renouncer. Specfic examples are given of each.

Some other chapters cover "antifundamentalisms" (e.g. how the threat of a fundamentalism was used politically) conversion narratives (with attention to the chapter author's background having been raised a Mormon), and the role that politics and ethnicity have in shaping a specific fundamentalism. The view tends to be sociological and political more than psychological. I was left with a feeling of how complex and varied these forms of religion are: it seems difficult to imagine how people might readily give them up, as secular humanists might hope, but understanding them seems a good start to considering how to behave with them, considering especially that together they cover a huge number of people and do not seem to be going away soon (if, as a group, at all).

Fundamentalisms Comprehended........2001-07-27

Finishing its work in five volumes rather than the projected six, The Fundamentalism Project concludes with a monument of scholarship, a survey and interpretation likely to remain the fullest and deepest consideration of the fundamentalist phenomenon for decades to come. The volume's star-studded cast (including Gabriel Almond, Wayne C. Booth, Ernest Gellner, S. N. Eisenstadt, and Emmanuel Sivan) has been put to work at what it does best-comparing and contrasting fundamentalism in the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and South Asian religious traditions. Chapters break ground in dealing with such topics as humor in fundamentalist circles (more prevalent than one might think) and a literary analysis of stories about finding true faith. Throughout this volume, as the project as a whole, the assumption reigns that "fundamentalisms" are a similar phenomenon across religions.

Fundamentalisms Comprehended contains too many theories to convey here; suffice to note two, from the introductory and concluding chapters. In the first, Sivan argues that the key allure of fundamentalist movements lies in their "enclave" nature, their offer of group identity and taking part in a social network. Therefore, those most attracted to fundamentalism are neither the blatantly oppressed nor the poor but rather the subordinated and the alienated-anyone from American suburbanite commuters stuck at midlevel in large corporations to dwellers of shantytowns in Tehran or Cairo. A trio of authors closes the study observing that fundamentalism has far better political prospects in authoritarian states than in democratic ones: if suppression by the former does not "root out these movements," the "temptations and challenges" of the latter force fundamentalists to huddle in their enclaves, where they pose little danger to the state.

Middle East Quarterly, June 1996

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How to Cook Shrimp & Other Shellfish
Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine , John Burgoyne , and Jack Bishop
Manufacturer: Boston Common Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Seafood | Meat, Poultry & Seafood | Cooking by Ingredient | Cooking, Food & Wine | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0936184302

Amazon.com

The possibility of finding top-quality shellfish in our markets is greater than ever, but how best to prepare this bounty? How to Cook Shrimp & Other Shellfish has the answer. In fewer than 100 pages it provides illustrated, step-by-step instructions for preparing shrimp, scallops, clams, lobsters, and crabs, among other shellfish--recipes, tips, and information that all cooks can use.

Taking shellfish type by type, the book provides a thorough introduction to the best cooking methods for each, lauding, for example, brining, a method sure to produce succulent cooked shrimp. Master recipes such as Pan-Seared Scallops are followed by variations that include, in this case, scallops with lemon, shallots and capers, and sherry, red onion, orange, or thyme. Throughout, underlying techniques are explored and illustrated (preparing a lobster for cooking is an exemplary one), and sensible tips abound (for example, a splatter screen is useful when frying soft-shelled crabs, which contain a great deal of water).

A true primer, the book is part of the Cook's Illustrated Library series. Like the magazine, the books are dedicated to presenting tried-and-perfected recipes and cooking techniques in a concise, approachable way. --Arthur Boehm

Book Description

An illustrated step-by-step guide to preparing shrimp, scallops, clams, mussels, oysters, lobster, and crabs

Book Description

Expansive photo guide to cloth dolls made by Lenci, Nora Welling, Chad Valley, and many others. Lavishly illustrated with a bevy of beautiful photos plus packed with detailed descriptions to make identification simple. Loaded with 1990 values by the best selling author of the Hard Plastic Doll series. Features 47 color and 271 b/w photographs. 256 pages.

Book Description

Hospital Interior Architecture

Customer Reviews:

Accessing archeytpal memories.......2006-02-15

It is interesting to me to see the way one person's account of an intensely felt memory has been accepted as evidence of renincarnation. I refer here in particular to the research work done by Walter Semkiw. What about the many unpublished accounts and experiences of others who identify closely with the life experiences of Anne Frank, indeed, feeling such an affinity that they too believe that they may have been Anne Frank in a past life? For one such account that approaches the connection from a Vedantic point of view (Indian philosophy), please read Letter to Anne by Frances Todd, which you can also locate on Amazons.com Read it, compare notes with this account, and review. Yes, I am the author of that book. It is not so much that I have written that book, as, I have compiled an account of an inner journey that required identification with personality and dreams of Anne Frank, to effect self-healing. Personal healing is a conduit for cosmic healing. The purpose of any reincarnation story is ulitmately, linked with the concept: the one is many. If you are a person who is sensitively living with the planet's energies, then you will understand how the personality expression is simply, a composite of streams of energies called archetypes. No one person has a copyright to them.

terrific story, touching portrayal........2003-01-21

I read and re-read Ms. Karlen's book and found it to be a heartfelt commentary on the persistence and tenacity of the human spirit. I believe this book and Lance Armstrong's book both illustrate how one person can overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and emerge a winner.

Huh?.......2001-12-29

Never have I been as perplexed about a book as with this selection.Aside from the back that the writing style/ language is droning, montone and without texture of any kind, I don't know what the book was aiming to explain. The story is Boring-
I had to search high and low for details about the re-incarnation aspects.This subject, which claims to be the main one of this book actually takes a back seat to the authors mundane tales of dressage, and I supposes tales of persecution.
I am usually delighted by a nice photo section, but here again I was mystified by the selection: a photo of the author at age 2, age 2 1/2, age 7, age 12, another age 12, different headshot pose, one of the author in 1981 next to a horse, another in 1989 with two horses and "a colleague"- no identification , another photo of the author on a horse, late 1980's, another horse photo with the author, 1989, another of the author (surprise!) with a horse, 1991, and then a headshot of the author 1997, and then a different pose 1998.No other photos of persons, objects, buildings, streets, family members documents- basically nothing besides that author in her dresssage get-up ,or a studio portrait of her face.This is so eerie.
I have read hundreds and hundreds of biographies, memoirs, including dozens of narratives of people's experiences with past life regressions and the like.This one is a doozie, this lady is just plain flaky and a poor storyteller as well.Sorry- add me to the extensive list of people who the author claims to be persecuted by.

Was she really Anne Frank reincarnated?.......2000-08-01

This is the long--awaited English translation of "Und die Woelfe heulten," the controversial bio-novel in which Swedish writer Barbro Karlen claims to be the reincarnation of Anne Frank -- yes, THE Anne Frank who wrote famous diary. The book created quite a stir in the German-speaking world when it first came out in 1997. There were angry protests, as well as attempts to stop its publication, on the part of a small segment of the Jewish population who believed in neither reincarnation nor freedom of speech -- all of which I reported in "Life and Soul" magazine (London) in 1998.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the book was published. I'm giving it five stars -- not because I really believe she was Anne Frank (I'm skeptical) but as a vote of free speech for a very brave author. The book raises some real questions about how issues from one life might be carried over into another, and how they might be resolved. Regardless of whether you decide the story is fact or fiction, "And the Wolves howled" is a very thought-provoking read!

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