Book Description
Top resume writers share their secrets to help you land the job you want! Members of the Professional Association of Resume Writers have pooled their expertise to create 101 of the very best resumes available anywhere. Find out how you can create cover letters and resumes that get jobs, target your resume for specific positions, use different formats to get noticed, and much more. Throughout the book are more than 175 street-smart tips on everything from interviewing, to salary negotiating, networking, and working with executive recruiters. Get the best of the best resumes to help you compete in today's tough job market.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent resume resource for those without a clue.......2007-08-25
This book will undoubtedly save time for those who are frustrated by the process of writing their own resume. Having reviewed more resumes than I can count at this point, I can fully appreciate the value in showing people how to scrutinize their own work. The trouble that I've found is that people are too close to their own histories to do a really good job of marketing themselves. They know too much. What this book shows as much as anything is that getting a professional review on a resume is worth the price.
Good Value.......2002-07-17
I found the book to be very helpful. It had some useful tips and sample resumes and cover letters. One of the best books of its type I've ever seen
Boring and a waste of time!.......2000-04-25
I bought this book based on all of the favorable review's and was greatly disappointed. As a recent college graduate in the humanities, I found it to be a big waste of time and money! If you are not interested in finding a job, buy this book!
Good Pick.......1999-12-28
My wife got me this book for Christmas through Amazon.com to follow up with my New Year's resolution to look for new opportunities in healthcare. This book is pretty good - it has a lot of varying kinds of resumes and good tips for overall job search, interviewing, and networking.
Good Pick.......1999-12-28
My wife got me this book for Christmas through Amazon.com to follow up with my New Year's resolution to look for new opportunities in healthcare. This book is pretty good - it has a lot of varying kinds of resumes and good tips for overall job search, interviewing, and networking.
Amazon.com
Although this new history of same-sex desire does not offer the long, satisfying narratives of Lillian Faderman's Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers or the sweep of David Greenberg's The Construction of Homosexuality, it does provide a solid introduction to the subject. Tantalizing fragments from the 17th and 18th centuries are joined with later evidence to flesh out Rupp's vision, which draws on Native American and African practices as well as the culture brought to (and imposed on) America by the Europeans. While surveying the more familiar history of gay culture in the cities, she also describes the growth of small, hidden lesbian and gay communities in places as unlikely as Salt Lake City, far removed from the urban centers of vice. Rupp also surveys changes in attitude toward same-sex love within academia in the last 50 years, as well as in American culture at large, and provides a useful bibliography. --Regina Marler
Book Description
With this book, Leila J. Rupp accomplishes what few scholars have even attempted: she combines a vast array of scholarship on supposedly discrete episodes in American history into an entertaining and entirely readable story of same-sex desire across the country and the centuries.
"Most extraordinary about Leila J. Rupp's indeed short, two-hundred-page history of 'same-sex love and sexuality' is not that it manages to account for such a variety of individuals, races, and classes or take in such a broad chronological and thematic range, but rather that it does all this with such verve, lucidity, and analytical rigor. . . . [A]n elegant, inspiring survey." —John Howard, Journal of American History
Customer Reviews:
Where is the middle of the book?.......2007-03-23
I purchased this book for a gender studies class and upon attempting to read it, realized that pages 109-140 are completely missing. GONE. Needless to say, I am not particularly thrilled that this wasn't caught by someone.
The content of the book, however, I would give 5 stars. Lots of historical insights and information I didn't know much about.
NOT BAD FOR A QUICKIE..........2003-03-27
...but amazon.com's own editor-review (and Professor Hugo B. Schwyzer's review) are both certainly right; it's no Lillian Faderman-quality work! Faderman's work is never a gloss-over, never leaves the reader with the feeling that underneath the information and/or conclusions proffered there is still a great deal not only unsaid but *unseen* by the author. Perhaps that is why I found this book personally unsatisfying; I want to know something more, something different than the same old well-and-better-plowed ground. Compared to Faderman's work --- and that of some other good lesbian historians, as well (and I would also highly recommend `Boots Of Leather, Slippers Of Gold' for a "limited-community" history) this book's brevity and surface feel is rather like a history of the Civil War that wound up offering the premise that "In the 1860's, the North and the South fought each other over a lot of things, including slavery, and then Lincoln freed the slaves, and then the North won." Where *are* the reasons and the events??? Selfishly, perhaps, I just plain expect more from a purported lesbian history, even one limiting itself primarily to the last 50 years in small communities, than I found in `A Desired Past'. While Rupp does offer somewhat of a new chronicle in her attention to the growth of academic acceptance of lesbian teachers, professors and students, it's just not enough to rescue the book and make it at all engaging. Lacking the the sweep, the depth, and the sheer power of `Odd Girls And Twight Lovers' and `To Believe In Women', for example, Rupp's book is really more a 20th-century Lesbian History 101 text than anything else. But in that context, it's good for introducing newbies (and perhaps your local scared-to-come-out academic) to the subject, it's still competently written and it's still a nice, light read for all lesbians.
(P.S. For a departure from Faderman's usual subject matter, lesbian history, DON'T miss her *terrific* new autobiography `Naked In The Promised Land' --- wonderfully written, and complete with her pictures from the girlie mags of the 50's and her career as a stripper, which she used to work her way through UC Berkeley and a PhD, at 26! To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, "Who *sez* a girl can't give as good as she's got?")
Excellent general overview.......2001-07-07
This fall semester (2001), I will be teaching a course in Lesbian and Gay history at my community college. In preparation for this course, I looked at many different books, hoping to find an ideal survey text for an introductory course in GLBT history. Alas, Rupp's book falls short of the ideal -- but is nonetheless the best brief introduction to the history of same-sex sexuality available on the market today. I will be using her book in my class this fall.
What I appreciate about this text is her almost seamless interweaving of personal experience with historical narrative. I realize that traditionalists tend to find this practice either unprofessional or self-indulgent (or both), but I delight in it. More importantly, I have noted that my students respond very well to history texts that do not shy away from the highly personal.
Rupp does a good job of giving a quick overview of the "essentialist" and "constructionist" schools of thought among the historians of sexuality. Perhaps best of all, she insists on the use of the term "same-sex sexuality" rather than Lesbian or Gay, recognizing that the latter terms are perhaps too easily associated with the essentialist argument.
All in all, a brief but well-constructed text, ideal (I hope) for the classroom and for the curious general reader.
informative overview.......2000-08-06
Leila Rupp has done a competent job of examining same-sex relationships in American life, beginning with colonial attitudes, all the way through the "coming out of the closet"era of our own time. She has laid aside her historian's objectivity to tell us bits of her own life story. I hadn't realized that many same-sex involvements were looked upon more tolerantly in earlier times. The entrenched positions, pro and con, that are present today, are anomalies, considering the history she provides. One comes away from the book, also, with an appreciation for the confusions and mysteries that still cloud our view of same-sex attachments. No one has the answers, and no research thus far has explained why things happen this way. As a hetero wife and mother of four, I must admit that I have very little understanding of the feelings of gays and lesbians, especially since my own view of female sexuality is not limited to just the male-female attraction, and copulation. To me, female sexuality is that and much more---it is bound up also with maternity, with conceiving, bearing, and raising one's children, with breast-feeding one's babies, with nurturing a family, with holding grandchildren in your arms. Rupp makes one weak reference to "diffuse female sexuality." Yes, it is diffuse, compared to male behavior. I can understand "romantic friendships" as Rupp describes them. Most girls go through this stage as young adolescents, and throughout their lives, most women treasure their female friends, who often are able to provide more necessary emotional support than their husbands. Yet somehow it seems sad to me that lesbians live their lives outside the fulfillment of diffuse female sexuality, which involves a male partner, pregnancy, nursing---a rich, heterosexual family life.
Book Description
Learn how the healing love of God can bring good out of your darkest, most shameful secrets.
Customer Reviews:
Just didn't apply to me.......2007-01-03
While I agreed with most of what this author had to say about our relationship with God, the topics covered in the book (divorce, eating disorders, sexual abuse)did not apply to me so it was difficult to keep reading.
a keeper.......2003-12-16
There are so many self-help books out there, but this one stands above the rest. Cynthia, a counselor, speaker, mom, and wife, takes us on a personal journey as she shares her own personal story, as well as stories of others who have found themselves caught in the trap of shame. Cynthia doesn't just offer stories, but practical help through spiritual, emotional and tangible steps that take you from guilt, pain or emotional conflict to freedom. This book is a keeper as it contains a timeless message that will help all who want to start fresh and see themselves as they truly were meant to be.
Deceived by Shame, Desired by God.......2002-02-16
Many thanks to Cynthia Spell Humbert for writing a book that has been much needed in the church. Working with women in ministry over the past 12 years, I have found that there is a deserate need among women to understand who they really are in Christ and how much they are desired by God. "Deceived by Shame, Desired by God" is the book I've been waiting for.
Cynthia brings to the table a wealth of wisdom gleaned through years of counseling in a clinical setting, but more importantly, she brings the wisdom gained from dealing with the issues of her own heart. Cynthia helps us understand our human condition and then takes us to the cross of Christ to find the power to break through to the life God wants for us.
Cynthia pulls no punches as she explains how the enemy can decieve our hearts, choking out the love from God that we so desperately need. Thankfully she doesn't leave us there, but takes us straight to the truth that will indeed set us free. We are desired by God!!
The real life stories will intrigue you, the truth of God's Word will liberate you, and your heart will be drawn to the God who desires to lavish his love on you.
Book that hits straight to the Heart!.......2002-01-04
This book is amazing! Cynthia really knows what she is talking about! You can tell from reading this book that she is a very caring, experienced councellor! The book hits home for me and I know for a lot of women, whether you've suffered from abuse, a divorce, a painful past, an abortion, or whatever, it will hit home for you!
Help for Those Desiring to be Free from Shame,.......2001-12-05
Cynthia Spell Humbert has written a powerful book on shame. It offers hope to those who suffer from shame and gives understanding to those who relate to someone who is dealing with it. She describes shame as an extremely painful internal wound that can cause a woman to believe she no reason to exist. The desire to cover the shame from people and God leads to various hiding patterns in behavior. She identifies places and circumstances that lead women to put on masks to cover their shame as inauthentic churches, dysfunctional families, addictions, sexual abuse, sin, eating disorders and loss of love. Cynthia points out that a woman has great worth in the Lord's eyes and that He used broken, weak and sinful people in the past to serve Him and that He will continue to do so. She also points out that it is never to late to come to God and allow Him to heal and to change the destructive patterns brought about by shame. She balances truth with grace as she covers the need to forgive in such a way that the reader does not feel beaten down but drawn to God's love. Her honesty about her own struggles with shame and how God's using that in her life will also make it safe for the reader bound by shame to be real about their own struggles and to seek help. Thank you, Cynthia, for addressing such a widespread issue.
Book Description
*Popularity of quilting continues to grow as the worldwide family of quilters builds on its 50 percent increase in numbers since 1997
This book comes to the rescue of quilters everywhere by finally addressing the most dreaded phrase in quilting instruction - quilt as desired. Packed with 150 step-by-step photos, detailed instructions and expert insight into thread selection, marking techniques and simple binding, each chapter meet your desire to continually grow as a quilter. Using straight-line and free-motion techniques to complete six feature projects, this revolutionary guide will help you take your quilting to new heights
Customer Reviews:
Great Straight Line Ideas.......2007-08-19
I love this book. It is an excellent resource for creating your own quilting when you don't have a free motion option for your machine. And when you do, Charlene walks you through innovative designs while making her instructions easy to follow. She shows you how to prepare for quilting, the technical aspects of quilting, hints to make things easier, and includes some projects. Excellent for those who want to make their quilts unique and are afraid to try on their own.
Average customer rating:
- How an innocent kids pastime evolved into a cutthroat industry populated by hustlers, con men and counterfeiters.
- The Follies of Collectors and Investors
- Interesting but just not enough
- Reads like a good mystery!
- Very compelling read
|
The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card
Michael O'keeffe , and
Teri Thompson
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
Baseball | Sports Cards | Antiques & Collectibles | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0061123927
Release Date: 2007-05-22 |
Book Description
Since its limited release just after the turn of the twentieth century, this American Tobacco cigarette card has beguiled and bedeviled collectors. First identified as valuable in the 1930s, when the whole notion of card collecting was still young, the T206 Wagner has remained the big score for collectors who have scoured card shows, flea markets, estate sales, and auctions for the portrait of baseball's greatest shortstop.
Only a few dozen T206 Wagners are known to still exist. Most, with their creases, stains, and dog-eared corners, look worn and tattered, like they've been around for almost a century. But one—The Card—appears to have defied the travails of time. Thanks to its sharp corners and its crisp portrait of Honus Wagner, The Card has become the most famous and desired baseball card in the world.
Over the decades, as The Card has changed hands, its value has skyrocketed. It was initially sold for $25,000 by a small card shop in a nondescript strip mall. Years later, hockey great Wayne Gretzky bought it at the venerable Sotheby's auction house for $451,000. Then, more recently, it sold for $1.27 million on eBay. Today worth over $2 million, it has transformed a sleepy hobby into a billion-dollar industry that is at times as lawless as the Wild West. The Card has made men wealthy, certainly, but it has also poisoned lifelong friendships and is fraught with controversy—from its uncertain origins and the persistent questions about its provenance to the possibility that it is not exactly as it seems.
Now for the first time, award-winning investigative reporters Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson follow the trail of The Card from a Florida flea market to the hands of the world's most prominent collectors. They delve into a world of counterfeiters and con men and look at the people who profit from what used to be a kids' pastime, as they bring to light ongoing investigations into sports collectibles. O'Keeffe and Thompson also examine the life of the great Honus Wagner, a ballplayer whose accomplishments have been eclipsed by his trading card, and the strange and fascinating subculture of sports memorabilia and its astonishing decline.
Intriguing and eye-opening, The Card is a ground-breaking look at a uniquely American hobby.
Customer Reviews:
How an innocent kids pastime evolved into a cutthroat industry populated by hustlers, con men and counterfeiters........2007-09-27
My goodness! The world has certainly changed a lot since I was a kid growing up in the late 50's and early 60's. Back then it seemed that just about every boy in elementary school and junior high collected baseball cards. Not a one of us had any idea that one day many of these cards would be worth a kings ransom. We pitched them in the schoolyard, traded them with our friends and stuck them in our spokes to make our modest Columbia or Schwinn bicycles sound something akin to a motorcycle. Then in the early 1980's all of this seemed to change. Now collecting and selling baseball cards was big business. A host of new card companies got into the fray and thousands of card shops opened across the country. The price of vintage cards skyrocketed and the 12 year olds who used to collect baseball cards simply for pleasure were now wheeling and dealing at their own stands at flea markets. So what had happened to cause the dramatic shift in this venerable hobby? Michael O' Keeffe and Teri Thompson have come up with a splendid history of baseball card collecting in their marvelous new book "The Card". Spotlighting the "Holy Grail" of baseball cards, the T206 Honus Wagner card issued by the American Tobacco Company in 1909, "The Card" offers a fascinating look at a hobby that so many Americans fondly recall from their youth. This is an important piece of Americana that really needed to be told.
In "The Card" O'Keeffe and Thompson document the origins of baseball cards. I was surprised to learn that the first baseball cards appeared sometime in the 1860's even before the formation of the National League.
However, it was in the early part of the 20th century that baseball cards began to appear as a premium with a whole host of products. Baseball cards were packed with cigarettes, candy and gum and ice cream. But it was not until 1952 that Topps decided to sell baseball cards in packs. It was this development more than any other that made the buying and trading of baseball cards such an important and enjoyable hobby among youths of that era. Fast forward now to the early 1980's. A number of new players began producing baseball cards including Fleer, Donruss and Upper Deck. All of a sudden it was fashionable to buy and trade baseball cards. And what's more lots of adults figured out that there was a ton of money to be made in old cards. A new industry sprung up virtually overnight. In "The Card" Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson introduce us to some of the key players in this new business. Some of those you will meet are extremely honest while far too many others have rather unsavory reputations. Readers will also learn about how valuable cards are graded and authenticated and why the term "buyer beware" should be uppermost in the minds of those purchasing such items. It turns out that there are myriad ways to alter a baseball card.
I must tell you that "The Card" held my interest from cover to cover. I fondly recall the days of my youth when I had so much fun with my cards and I am saddened to see what has become of the hobby. This is a well-written book that can be read and enjoyed by people from 10 to 90. A real gem! Highly recommended!
The Follies of Collectors and Investors.......2007-08-15
It is the most valuable piece of cardboard in the whole world: the T206 Honus Wagner PSA 8 NM-MT. It was printed in 1909 to be included in cigarettes from the American Tobacco Company, and shows a stiff and blocky young man with his hair parted in the middle, with a "Pittsburg" [sic] shirt buttoned all the way up. It isn't much to look at, but it was most recently sold to an anonymous collector for over two million dollars. This is all true, but also it is unbelievable; there must be something wrong here somewhere. And there is something wrong, all over the place in the world of sports collectibles, according to the story in _The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card_ (Morrow) by sports journalists and investigators Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson. You don't have to be interested in sports or collectibles to find this book amusing and enlightening, as it profiles collectors and their obsession with accumulation, and as it casts doubt on the integrity of many aspects of the enormous sport collectible market.
The authors admit that "Wagner's baseball card seems to have become more significant to twenty-first century baseball fans than Wagner himself." That's really too bad, for Wagner was a fine baseball player, inviting comparison with Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, both of whom were selected with Wagner as inaugural entries into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939. Cigarette companies in the 1880s started putting them into packs of ten cigarettes. Honus Wagner is the rarest card of the 1909 - 1911 set produced by the American Tobacco Company; There are around fifty of Honus Wagner's cards, each of them valuable, but most in poor condition. _The Card_ is about the one known as The Card, the one that is in superb condition; it has bright colors, its edges are clean and white, and the corners are sharp enough to draw blood. And that's the problem; The Card is, in the view of many, just in too good condition. There is a great peculiarity of the baseball card obsession: retouching or repairing a card is forbidden, or if not forbidden, it takes almost all the value of the card away. You can refinish antiques, and even the greatest Old Master paintings get retouched and no one minds as long as the work is done well; but baseball cards must not be doctored. And there are baseball card doctors who remove stains, smooth out wrinkles, build up flabby corners with wheat paste, and scalpel or laser rough edges to make the remaining ones sharp. There are serious doubts about the authenticity of The Card, explored at length here. The Card is now all sealed up in a special case, and no owner is likely to open it up to let appraisers reevaluate it.
It isn't just The Card that has authentication problems. Other cards do, and other sports hardware does; even bats, balls, and mitts that are authenticated by their previous owners as having been used in important games may not be the actual equipment as claimed. There are authentication services that for a fee will grade cards, but like any company, they want to please their best customers and are inclined to look favorably on cards from their favorites. Sometimes the services that do the authentication are also the ones that own the property and are auctioning it. Sometimes there are shills in the auctions to make the price go sky high. There is little policing by dealers, the authentication services, or governmental authorities. What used to be a fun hobby for kids has outgrown kids and has become a playground for rich fraudsters. The authors have hopes for the hobby, and there are those who are pushing for reform. There are some honest brokers profiled here, and maybe they will eventually have their way, but it hasn't happened yet. _The Card_, a brightly written and entertaining look at a unique realm of folly, reminds us that baseball may nominally be the national pastime, but the actual one is making a buck any way one can.
Interesting but just not enough.......2007-06-24
good book for any die hard baseball fan that loves its history. the card really dives into one of the games most prized possesions and it reads like a good mystery novel. however it doe get a bit long and you really don't feel for the millionaires who own this card just to say they own it :-) solid book for a baseball fan and its a quick read so pick it up and enjoy but dont expect a ton!
Reads like a good mystery!.......2007-05-26
This book was so much fun! I didn't know much about baseball or the hobby/big business of sports collectibles, and I learned a lot. Thompson and O'Keeffe vividly recreate the era when Honus Wagner played ball, when baseball cards came with tobacco, not bubble gum, then track the most valuable card in baseball and ask: Is it real? Did you know that opium and heroin were legal and available over the counter in 1900, even while some people were denouncing tobacco? I recommend this for Father's Day (but read it before you give it to him).
Very compelling read.......2007-05-23
I didn't have very high hopes for this book, since the subject matter (baseball card collectibles) isn't an area of interest for me, but an associate gave it to me to read on the train. I was very pleasantly surprised. Not only was it highly informative, it was extremely entertaining. I learned a ton about the history of baseball, how baseball cards got started, about Honus Wagner's life and the current, highly corrupted state of collectibles -- baseball cards in particular. This is a must for baseball fans and card collectors, or anyone who is interested in learning something about our national game.
Average customer rating:
- Where's the Romance?
- Slow start
- Prince charming was less perfect than this hero
- Pathetic attempt of a romance novel
- Unbearable
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Desired
Virginia Henley
Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General | Romance | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0440217032
Release Date: 1995-01-01 |
Book Description
Mesmerized by the dark knight's turquoise gaze, Lady Brianna of Bedford tried to turn away. After all, she was betrothed to Robert de Beauchamp. And now this total stranger, Christian Hawksblood, de Beauchamp's bastard brother, claimed her with a soul-searing look. What was his mystical power that compelled her to abandon herself to this man she dare not even trust...
Christian Hawksblood, Prince and Knight Templar, burned with memories of the beauty he first saw in a vision, clad only in a nimbus of red-gold hair. Brianna of Bedford was his, ordained by fate. But first he had to deal with his jealous brother. And then with Brianna, the innocent temptress who branded him with passion even as she compelled him to listen with his heart...
Customer Reviews:
Where's the Romance?.......2007-07-11
After 56 pages, I'm still waiting for the real story to begin. I've already read about multiple affairs and unnecessary sex scenes I'm ready to throw the book in the trash and start reading another one!
Slow start.......2006-11-26
This book starts slow, but it is well the wait. I started to read and thought that I wasn't going to be interested. I am thrilled that I stuck it out. I started crying and then wanted to cheer for the heroine. I didn't want it to end and I can't wait for sequels to this book.
Prince charming was less perfect than this hero.......2006-07-31
I didn't like this book.I agree with previous reviewers who said the hero was too perfect and Brianna was too immature.The hero can do everything he has no weaknesses even superman is susceptible to kryptonite.I didn't like him reading the heroine's mind at all.Brianna was a little too dumb for my taste I don't know what else Roger could have done to make her realize he was evil.The supernatural thing was overdone as other reviewers have pointed out.This is my least favourite V.Henley that I've read so far.I like my heroes to have feet of clay.
Pathetic attempt of a romance novel .......2005-12-26
After I finish reading this book I had to fight the urge to throw it straight into the trash because I had just finished reading garbage. What a complete waste of time and effort. The book is so out of place. I was very disappointed by the author because I usually enjoy her books but nothing could get to like this complete mess of a book.
Unbearable.......2004-11-04
The main flaw of this book is that it doesn't centre around the personalities two main characters! There isn't much introduction to them and throughout the story, you don't feel as if you get to know them or care about them at all. Christian and Brianna are either baiting each other with words or tearing each others clothes off. There is a lot of graphic sex scenes in this book that I felt isn't necessary for a 'romance'. And what is it with the erotic dreams?
There wasn't enough focus on the two main characters. Christian was absolutely sure that Brianna was his destiny the moment he laid eyes on her, because of his erotic dreams he was having of her, before he even met her. Shallow in the most extreme, and not very realistic. It was likewise for Brianna, therefore scrapping out the ritual 'dance' that most male-female characters do in romance novels, the courtship, and the teasing or arguments that comes before the couple fall in love; there were none of that.
However, there is one plus point to the book and that is the small romance between Prince Edward and Joan of Kent. This secondary romance was very sweet to read and unlike Christian and Brianna, you can actually feel the love between these two. You ache for them, but not for the actual lead characters.
This was my second VH book and will be my last. If I had wanted erotica, I would have just bought one. Putting erotica under romance just doesn't work in big doses for me. Pass this book over, you won't miss a thing.
Book Description
Whether one thinks homosexuals are born or made, they generally are not born into gay families, nor are they socialized to be gay by their peers or schools. How then do people become aware of homosexuality and, in some cases, integrate into gay communities? The making of homosexual identity is the result of a communicative process that entails searching, listening, looking, reading, and finding. Contacts Desired proposes that this communicative process has a history, and it sets out to tell that story.
Martin Meeker here argues that over the course of the twentieth century, a series of important innovations occurred in the networks that linked individuals to a larger social knowledge of homosexuality. He points to three key innovations in particular: the emergence of the homophile movement in the 1950s; the mass media treatments of homosexuals in the late 1950s and early 1960s; and the popularization of do-it-yourself publishing from the late 1940s to the 1970s, which offered bar guides, handmade magazines, and other materials that gay men and lesbians could use to seek one another out. In the process, Meeker unearths a treasure trove of archival materials that reveals how homosexuals played a crucial role in transforming the very structure of communications and urban communities since the postwar era.
"Contacts Desired is a valuable and enduring work of scholarship, surely the best book in gay and lesbian history this year."--Gay and Lesbian Review
Customer Reviews:
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.......2006-08-15
Martin Meeker's book is a fascinating exploration of the formative years of the gay rights movement in America, focusing particularly on the early attempts to build communication networks linking isolated communities and individuals. His research is exhaustive, his writing is lucid and compelling, and his illustrations are wonderfully evocative of the period. Meeker breaks new ground in his analysis of the charge frequently leveled against the early homophile organizations: that they were too concerned with assimilating homosexuals into mainstream society. He argues persuasively that much of the apparent assimilationism was in fact deeply subversive, and yet he does not shy away from exploring the organizations' short-comings in the problem areas of gender, race and class. Particularly impressive is the delicacy with which he explores the complex motivations of gay rights pioneers, many of whom are still alive, telling their stories with a candor which removes some of the clouding myths, revealing women and men who were sometimes flawed, but always courageous.
Product Description
"Countless successful preachers of the Gospel have used illustrations to help listeners better understand and come to experience God's presence in their everyday lives. These stories serve to illustrate that the real-life experiences of Chrstians both at home and abroad are stanger than fiction..." Billy Graham
Customer Reviews:
Two major strengths.......2005-05-11
This collection of anecdotes and stories has two things that distinguish it. It is among those narratives that remind you in a hundred different vignettes of the burning, sacrificial love that Christ ignites in people completely surrendered to Him. But it is unique in my experience as an account of the work of God in 20th Century Afghanistan. You may find yourself adding the account of the church built in Kabul for Christian diplomats, or the explosion of Christianity among the Afghan blind people to your own stock of illustrations of God's character. I am buying "loaner" copies of this book for friends for that reason.
Customer Reviews:
Steamy and Complex.......2005-03-31
I know everyone else didn't like the book, but I really did. The heroine was acting very real for someone who has been rejected and replaced by a woman her age by her father. She was angry and hurt. Flint was a seasoned man who was determined to rebuild what his father, mother, and brother ruined. They did fall in love, though they don't come right out and say it like most books do. It's up to the reader to read between the lines and see the emotion behind their thoughts and actions. It's very erotic and I finished the story happy with the ending.
Expected better.......2004-05-25
Where do I begin?First of all,I did not like any of the characters.When reading a romance novel(and i'm guessing this is suppose to be one)you're suppose to root for the main couple.In this book,I honestly didn't care what happened.This whole book was mostly sex.How are you suppose to enjoy the sex scenes if you don't care about the couple doing it?I didn't feel any love between them.No actions on either one of their parts to prove that even if the words where not spoken.The characters and plot were both weak,the sex scenes and dialogue was repeated over and over again.If I like a book,I usually re-read it several times.Lets just say I was glad when I finished this.
Sinful Stepmother Steals the Show!.......2003-12-07
The problem with this book is that Nyreen -- the scheming step mother -- is about 900 times sexier and more ambitious than pouty, sulky, not-too-bright Little Miss Dayne. When Nyreen is alone with poor, dumb, fat Harry, the bumbling father figure in the novel, and slowly sucking him dry in all kinds of sex scenes that are exhausting to read but incredibly exciting, well the book is a classic. On a very animal level! Harry's befuddled lust, and Nyreen's manipulation, are not inspiring, but they are vividly real. The human exploitation fits in very nicely with the slavery setting -- after all, people who own slaves are born manipulators and skilled at reducing others to the animal level.
But Dayne and Flint are not really that good a couple. Neither seems to feel that slavery is wrong, or right either. They sort of drift through the setting without being part of it. They don't love each other, and they don't even like each other. They trade insults and then start having sex. Unlike Nyreen, Dayne has no clear cut goals and no real determination to do things her way. She just drifts from one hot love scene to another.
If you love hot romance, this book is a classic and well worth reading. But if you demand strong characters and a heroine you can admire, you should probably just give it a miss.
Do not bother with it!.......2003-08-24
This was my first book by this author, and it was awful. There is NO plot; all there is sex, and not even good sex at that! I think part of the problem of the book is that is beyond unrealistic. I understand the need to suspend belief for a book, but this just expects you to suspend it a bit too much.
Disappointing Read.......2003-01-03
I was looking for a quick and fun read. This is my first book by this author and I was very disappointed. I have read a lot of novels by Lind Howard, Lori Foster, Cherry Adair, and Emma Holly. This novel was not in the same league. The book just seems to run out of speed. While the relationship has a few erotic moments, there was not enough heat to sustain my interest.
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