Customer Reviews (8)

Just Beautiful
This book of poetry by Ted Kooser was a lovely surprise.I've been a fan of Jim Harrison's poetry and thought I'd give this book a try.It is 100 poetry postcards sent to Jim Harrison from the author during a time of stress in mid-winter.The poems are so beautiful.They make you appreciate the natural world in a whole new way, and life as well.

A master poet, intimate moments
Kooser is a master, but this collection of his postcard poems to a friend during cancer recovery is very powerful. An intimite glimpse at despair and hope allmixed up with the wonder of winter mornings. Easy to see why he's been the US Poet Laureate.

His Best
Out of the many excellent books that Ted Kooser has written, for my money this is the best.Written while recovering from cancer its reflections of before sunrise walks are his most deeply personal.It is a book that should be shared with all those who struggle with cancer.Ted deserves to be held up as one of the greatest poets that America has ever produced.

Delicious tidbits of observation
Ted Kooser manages to eloquently describe the world around him without ever being puffed up, aluding to obscure classics or requiring PhD research.This volume is just a wonderful, accessable group of poetic morsels that go down smoothly and leave you hungering for more.

Winter postcards form Nebraska
Spanning from Nov 9 to the first day of spring, these short, direct poems all reflect a pre-dawn walk in Nebraska "beneath a billion indifferent stars". A short statement of the weather (for example, "two degrees and clear" on December 30) is followed by a short poem influenced by what he saw on his walk. ("Older this morning, the moon /hid most of her face / behind a round gray mirror").

The poems sometimes reflect different shades of darkness, from "a deer of gray vapor" to "a rutted black field". The poems are set within his recovery from cancer "Lucky I am to go off to my cancer appointment having been given a bluebird")

I read each of the poems on the same date they were written, which provided a personal contrast.As a postcard collector, I would love to receive one of these poems on a postcard.
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Product Description
This digital document is an article from Forensic Science Communications, published by Federal Bureau of Investigation on October 1, 2009. The length of the article is 5023 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Handwriting examination: meeting the challenges of science and the law.
Author: Diana Harrison
Publication: Forensic Science Communications (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2009
Publisher: Federal Bureau of Investigation
Volume: 11Issue: 4Page: NA

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Product Description
This digital document is an article from Poetry, published by Modern Poetry Association on February 1, 2002. The length of the article is 596 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison. (Short Reviews).
Author: John (English pop musician) Taylor
Publication: Poetry (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 2002
Publisher: Modern Poetry Association
Volume: 179Issue: 5Page: 295(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Product Description
Admiral Philip Bergen, Director of National Intelligence, is caught between the demands of the global war on terror and those of a White House increasingly focused on the coming Presidential election. A dramatic alteration of U.S. strategy for combating Islamic extremism may be in the offing, prompted by a growing crisis in Pakistan. Its effect may be as dramatic as the shift of the Soviet Union from World War II ally to Cold War enemy. The pace of events is rapid and the sweep broad. A Course To Stay begins in Washington and ends in Afghanistan, with London, Paris, Ankara, Islamabad, and Karachi in between. As in his earlier novel, An Opaque War, the author tells his story through the day-to-day interaction of his characters, all drawn with real-world believability, from the President to the leader of the international Islamic jihad, to CIA field officers dealing with the challenges of Pakistan and Afghanistan. His command of insider detail and finely tuned ear for authentic dialogue, against a background of real-world global issues, puts the reader in the company of a compelling cast of personalities conducting the high-stakes affairs of their nations, their business ventures, and their God-driven crusades. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Course To Stay
Frederick Harrison books are terrific. My first read of Harrison's was An Opaque War. In this first novel, Harrison very successfully combined an insight into contemporary terrorist issues with a suspenseful drama to keep the reader turning the pages. The challenges our government is facing is its efforts to combat terrorism were brought to light in a real and compelling fashion, and the intrigue and suspense of his first novel insured that I had to read his second, A Course To Stay. It certainly did not disappoint. A Course To Stay continued to raise the political issues that are so relevant to our times as we try to deal with Islamic extremism. Simultaneously, I couldn't put the book down as the day-to-day interaction of his characters unfolded. I am already looking forward to his next novel.

I'm not generally a fan of fiction...
I am not generally a fan of fiction.As a devourer of hundreds of pages of daily non-fiction and current affairs, it takes an example of pretty good fiction to pull me away from the real world and convince me to lose myself for a few days in make believe.

Author Fred Harrison's novel "A Course to Stay" goes beyond good fiction.Harrison's story picks up immediately after his first novel, "An Opaque War" leaves off.It unfolds across the globe shadowing the footsteps of real-world news stories from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Europe, and Washington D.C.The story itself is compelling and topical, teasing the reader's imagination and making him wonder "Could this stuff actually be happening this way?"Harrison's background in some of America's premier spy agencies certainly allows for the possibility.The plot of the story parallels real-world challenges, but the book is driven as much by its characters as it is the story itself.Harrison's protagonist and Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Philip Bergen serves, one supposes, as the author's own mouthpiece, communicating a lifetime of experience to real-world decision makers.In a post 9-11 world where the public seems almost instinctively to pin every tragic terrorist attack on some failure of our intelligence agencies, Bergen warns Congress:

"What I am saying is that, if we are to improve the performance of our intelligence services, we need to focus first on the people and organizations involved and how they interoperate.When we speak of `connecting the dots,' I believe that we may be paying too much attention to the dots and not enough to the connecting part."

Whether from Admiral Philip Bergen, Director of National Intelligence or from the author himself, it's sound advice.It's just one of many sentiments the reader will find himself wishing real spy chiefs might one day stand behind.

Through the course of this novel, Harrison demonstrates the significant differences between real people and the images they use to inspire their followers.His story winds its way through a maze of stereotypes and public assumptions, revealing the harsher realities and challenges that lie below.This is no tuxedoed caricature - this is an exciting and forceful glimpse into the interplay of America's first line of defense in the war against terrorism - as well as Her opponents and allies.The relationships between agencies, intelligence providers, consumers, and the public figures that have to take the credit (or the blame) for their outcomes become characters of their very own.The synthesis of real-world experience, a writer's eye, rich characters, and exciting plot bears all the marks of an accomplished veteran writer; a quality morenotable because this is Harrison's second novel.

When the back cover closed and I'd finished my vacation from non-fiction, I found it difficult to get back to my daily news briefs and current affairs reports.It wasn't just that they lacked the intrigue and style of a Harrison novel.Rather, I found myself wondering what shadowy hands were at play behind the scenes.Perhaps that is the highest compliment I can pay Mr. Harrison and his work.It made me think as much as it made me enjoy.

Michael S. Brewer
Alexandria, Virginia

Excellent!
I never got around to reviewing An Opaque War, a terrorism novel, written by my old pal Fred Harrision.I thought he did a great job with plot, character development and giving an inside look at how things work in intelligence and counter terrorism in Washington.He's just published the sequel, A Course to Stay.The latter is full of Washington politics and personalities and is a serious read.What he puts in fiction could happen.His view of Pakistan is informed, even insightful.The interplay of White House politics with real world issues makes for a dynamic plot.Great characters, good story, believable plot, thought-provoking options, I recommend both.

The Intelligence of Geopolitics
A Course to Stay, the second novel by Frederick Harrison, carries on where An Opaque War ended. Harrison, a retired member of the Senior Intelligence Service at CIA (and the National Security Agency and Office of Naval Intelligence), intertwines what seem to be mutually exclusive plots into a realistic, suspenseful geopolitical story that may become more truth than fiction. The leader of the Islamic fundamentalists, Anwar al-Ghabrizi, remains in US custody (after being captured in the first novel), yet the government is puzzled about what to do with him, why he was betrayed, and who betrayed him. Pakistan, from where he was snatched, is slowly moving toward a fundamentalism characteristic of Afghanistan, which would destroy the US power base in the region.

Views of the US President, Vice President, cabinet members, congressional leaders, intelligence and law enforcement chiefs, military leaders, and similar individuals in Russia, France, Pakistan, the UK and Turkey present solutions which serve their best interest (including those of the upcoming presidential election in the US). These options range from supporting this fundamentalism, hoping that it will cause rival Islamic factions to turn on each other, to providing major support to bolster the failing Pakistani government.

Unlike most intelligence novels, Harrison focuses on a top-down view, allowing readers a rare glimpse in the complications involved within the geopolitical frames of government, and how the intelligence community is involved, or not involved, in such key decisions.

Not only a novel, but also an education in how the reality of such events impacts the government at top levels. It was written six months before the current crisis of the government in Pakistan (mid 2008). While A Course to Stay stands on its own, An Opaque War offers the background that will assist the reader in fully understanding the multiple plots.

Emil Levine is a retired Navy Reserve Captain and has served with the Office of Naval Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency.
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Product Description
Key of G for voice and piano. ... Read more