Close Encounters of the Sexy Kind

Customer Reviews:

Silly but fun sexy romp.......2007-09-02

The planet Nerak is perfect--perfectly boring for Mala. When her android valet suggests one more hormone smoothie to deal with her boredom, she decides to follow her explorer-grandmother's example and visit Earth. After all, she is something of an expert on Earth. She's viewed the fascinating XXX documentary, Callie Does the Sheriff a number of times. Although the elders have banned space travel (they've also banned males as that sex created wars and problems, something tiny and resource-poor Nerak couldn't support), Mala decides to hijack a spaceship and head for Earth. She leaves her valet, Barton behind to cover for her.

Sure enough, Mala finds a sheriff--sexy Mason McKinley. But Mason is the kind of guy who only believes what he sees--and insists he doesn't see anything he doesn't want to believe in. What he does want to believe in is Mala, though. Fueled by chocolate (there's no chocolate on Nerak), Mala is a sexual dynamo and Mason enjoys every minute. The only problem he has is her strange delusion that she is an alien. When Barton arrives, sorting out problems for the town of Washboard, Texas's single female, everything seems to have fallen into place. Unfortunately, though, Mala's ship was seen and tabloid reporters want to make Mala a story--a story none of them believe to be true.

Author Karen Kelley goes completely camp in this novel of alien love. Mistaking an XXX-rated movie for a documentary is only the first in a series of mistakes and blunders as Mala explores a huge and different world, determines that bigfoot (Hypotronds to those of Nerak) have survived on Earth, mistakenly believes she is dying when the sun sets (Nerak has two suns and never gets dark), and spends three thousand dollars of Mason's money on sex toys to make sure her seduction of the local sheriff goes off on schedule. Barton, rejected on Nerak, is precisely what Mason's friend Carol needs--and would be pretty much a treasure to any woman.

Modern Science Fiction requires development of plausible explanations for such details as having a tiny planet with gravity equal to Earths, parallel development of the English language, sexual compatability between alien species, faster than light space travel, and a breakdown in the law of conservation of energy (at one point, Mala admits to generating a gigawatt or so of energy through sex--the equivalent of a nuclear power plant). Harking back to an earlier time in SF, Kelley simply goes for the romp. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE SEXY KIND isn't Science Fiction to make you think, it's paranormal romance to make you smile--and guess what, it works.

A very sexy book that is out of this world!.......2007-07-03

Mala was tired of her bored and perfect life. She wanted something different that her present. Her grandmother had told her stories about life in another planet called Earth. According to her grandmother life on earth was not like it was in Nerak. So Mala decided to travel to earth and see for herself. When Mason McKinley was elected to be sheriff of the small town of Washborn, Texas he didn't know that he would have to deal with crazy reporters searching for Bigfoot or Aliens! But here he was answering a call of a supposedly flying saucer crashing near his property. Instead of finding an alien he found a woman who must have been in an accident since she had a nasty bump on her head. Boy even with the bump she was sexy as hell! Since she apparently has amnesia he decides to take her to his place and care for her. After all is his duty as sheriff, right? Ha! The electric currents between them have lights flickering every time they are together! Literally! Karen Kelley keeps getting better and better! This is the kind of book that you can't put down! The characters are unique, the story have romance, heat and a funky sense of humor that will have you laughing out-loud! The secondary story is great too. I just love the way she heats up a sex scene and weaves the humor and heart in it. This is my first "alien" paranormal and I hope she has a sequel. Now if you are out at night and see color lights flickering in the sky, watch out, there must be a Nerakian having really good sex nearby!

A True Winner!.......2007-04-04

Mala is tired of sex with her perfect man. In fact she's so sick of it...it's been three years, twenty-one days, fourteen hours, and twenty-two minutes and nine seconds...but who's counting? Well, Barton, Mr. Perfect is and that's half the problem. Mala longs to experience all the wondrous things her grandmother did in her intergalactic travels. This means sneaking away and flying to Earth. Imagine her surprise when she arrives she runs into Sheriff just like in the holographs her grandmother had. But this Sheriff is a little different but in a good way. And life on earth is not exactly what she expected...at first.

Sheriff Mason McKinley is tired and not in the mood for another UFO sighting but goes to investigate anyhow. Instead of a flying saucer and little green men he comes across Mala and her head injury seems to have caused amnesia, leaving him feeling protective and unusually drawn to his guest. But will he believe her when she tells him the truth and how on earth can there be a happy ending when they come from different worlds literally?

Karen Kelley has hit a homerun with her latest contemporary romance. One thing I'm thrilled to see included is Ms. Kelley's entertaining wit. Be prepared to laugh out loud at the antics of all of the characters. Mala and Mason are great protagonist and this is a touching opposites attract romance. If you haven't read a Kelley yet...your missing out. I highly recommend this writer and suggest you add her to your must read list!

excellent romantic science fiction .......2007-04-01

On planet Nerak, Mala finds her perfect life too perfectly boring as the Coalition of Elders know what is best for everyone. Her only fun in life is her grandmother's illegal contraband including a journal about her travels on earth where the best lovers in the universe can be found. Having not obtained an orgasm in over three years, Mala is envious as she covets having an earth male make love to her.

When the opportunity surfaces Mala flees Nerak with the hot journal and an erotic western "documentary" starring the "Sheriff". She makes it to earth where Sheriff Mason McKinley has just put down a Bigfoot rumor has to deal with a UFO rumor that turns out to be Mala. As they make love and fall in love, the irate Coalition of Elders arrives to bring home the recalcitrant youngster.

Karen Kelley provides one of the top romantic science fiction tales of the year with this delightfully jocular gender bending merging of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Earth Girls Are Easy. Mala is a delight as she explores every inch of the Sheriff in ways he never imagined. Fans will appreciate this amusing hot close encounter of the first kind as the heroine learns earth sheriffs are easy to love.

Harriet Klausner

Close Encounters of the Sexy Kind-A Joyfully Recommended Read!!.......2007-03-29

Mala is bored. Bored with the peaceful, perfect male-free life on her planet. Although she and her cousin have created the perfect male robot to cater to all their needs, something is missing. She finds herself constantly watching her grandmother's documentary on the planet Earth featuring Sheriff and a young woman. Now that is the kind of man she wants to have sex with. Even knowing she's breaking all the rules, she quickly heads off for Earth determined to find "Sheriff". As sheriff, Mason thought that he had seen it all with the tabloid reporters running through the woods looking for big foot, but after finding Mala in the woods life keeps getting weirder and weirder. Mason doesn't hold up long under Mala's determined seduction and the passion quickly explodes between them. But with the passion comes love, something neither of them expected. When the reporters lurking around find out the truth about Maya, Mason must protect her. Just when things couldn't seem to get any worse, the Elders show up determined to take Maya home.
I COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING!! Karen Kelley has written a definite winner with Close Encounters of the Sexy Kind. One moment I was giggling and the next moment I was sweating from the steam generated between Mala and Mason. Close Encounters of the Sexy Kind is a wonderfully funny and sexy romance that readers will not want to miss!

Melissa
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Heaven: Close Encounters of the God Kind

Average customer rating:

I watched the DVD, and I'm getting this book!
Must really Be True !!
This is a wonderful work of fiction.
sad but true.
This book is great!!

Heaven: Close Encounters of the God Kind
Jesse Duplantis
Manufacturer: Harrison House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0892749431

Book Description

Experience the Power and Glory of a Trip to Heaven!

Heaven is a very real place. It has often been pictured as a place where everyone sits on fluffy clouds and plays a harp for eternity. According to the Word of God, however, this picture is far from the truth. So what is heaven really like?

In this book, Jesse Duplantis shares several events that have happened to him in his relationship with God--events he calls close encounters of the God kind. One of these events is his trip to heaven in 1988. He tells of the wonderful things the Lord has in store for us, both in heaven and on earth.

"I believe that if people could see the treasures that God has stored up for them in heaven, they wouldn't have such a hard time understanding God's will to prosper and heal them while they are on earth . . . . Anything that you can think of, anything you could want on earth has already been given to you there."
--Jesse Duplantis

As you read this book, you will discover the depth of the compassion and love God has for you. Your faith will be strengthened and encouraged as Jesse reveals answers too many questions about this wonderful place:

* What is Paradise?

* Are there children in heaven?

* Will I recognize family members?

* Will I really have my own mansion there?

* What is God's great Throne Room like?

* Plus much more!

It is God's desire that everyone spends eternity in heaven. So enjoy these close encounters of the God kind for yourself and join Jesse Duplantis in spreading the wonderful message that Jesus is coming again soon!

Customer Reviews:

I watched the DVD, and I'm getting this book!.......2007-04-27

I just watched the DVD... I was skeptical at first, but then God spoke to me, and softened my heart, and I ended up crying like a baby by the end.

My grandma experienced seeing angels before. She was dying of an untreatable disease, but an angel came in a form of little babies who were worshiping God and she saw them and was instantly healed. My grandma never read the Bible because she didn't know how to read, but she knew how to receive Jesus with a childlike heart!

Jesse shares his experience in rather childlike manner as well. I believe that what he saw was real because it made a lot of sense to me and it went alone with the Bible very well! I realized that fellowship is what's important! Through what Jessee shared, I only saw that people and angels living in Heaven constantly communicated with each other in a most lovable manner imaginable! They are filled with joy just for the fact that they're there in Heaven, and it's real, it's no joke!

People loose faith, and try to make things up to match things with science and such! So some start thinking that Heaven is symbolic, that it's not really real, etc, etc... But Heaven is real! And Jesus is real!

Some people forget that God created us in His image, and that He is real, that He's not some energy or simply light! God can be seen if allowed! He did appear to Moses, and He did take Elijah up to heaven on a chariot! Why don't we realize that it all actually happened, and God is the same always!

As I watched the DVDs, I felt presence of the Lord, and I felt closer to Jesus! I remembered how when I was a kid, my mom would always say, "nick, every time you do something bad and you don't repent, it hurts Jesus". As I grew up I stopped believing in that, but Jesse reminded me of it! Jesus actually does gets hurt every time his people go astray! Jesse reminds us that Jesus has feelings, and He loves people so much that every time there is a murder happening, or hateful words fall out of someone's mouth, Jesus cries!!

Also, we tend to think that everyone in heaven is so uptight, and serious and such, but it made a lot more sense when Jesse explained that David and Abraham were very nice and friendly! Even Jesus acted humble with him! Which is amazing! That only confirms that Jesus is truly a lamb! We can hurt Jesus, or we can love Jesus, and even though he is glorious and powerful, he is in fact a lamb, a Son of God who longs for a friendship with his people, and that's us!

We often pray, "Jesus make me happy", when in reality all we have to do is simply have a relationship with Him! That's the message I got from Jesse!

Another message I got from his, is that JESUS IS COMING SOON!

To all the people who posted negative responses to this book, I say, JESUS IS COMING SOON, get your blind folds off of your eyes, stop judging people, learn to love, clean up your act, and get yourself ready for the Kind of Kings is coming!

Must really Be True !!.......2007-03-27

I read the book and was blown away by the descriptions of things in heaven. He did this in 1988 and wrote the book. In the Book he talks about walking on a 100% pure gold sidewalk in heaven and being able to see through it as it was translucent. Scientist didn't/couldn't make 100 percent pure gold until the mid 90's and guess what. ONLY 100 percent pure gold can be seen through like mirror sunglasses, just like the book said.. How could he have known this.. unless it was true. many other parts of the book touched my spirit.. It's a must read for A TRUE Beliver.

This is a wonderful work of fiction........2007-03-09

Jesse Duplantis is a very, very funny person. With his imagination and humor he should be great entertainment for satan and his demons when he really does depart this life.

sad but true........2006-06-26

To all those who read the word to acquire a greater relationship with the Most High God, and those who take the responsibility of discipleship joyfully and all others, I greet you. Simple matter this book of Jesse's. With two scriptures we can continue our prayer for this brother . Those who have ears let them hear.

Colossians 2:18
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.

I sat in the audience in Vegas at one of jesse's sermons. This scripture is what came to mind.
Finally let's take care of the notion that a man was in the presence of God, or has seen the Holy city.

1 Timothy 6:16
Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen

It's clear that false prophets will come, Jesus said this as well as other writer's in the word of God. Whether jesse is or not doesn't matter. Salvation is individual and judgement is also. The only ship you must get right is the one you ride on! Search the scriptures and right your own ship. jesse going to pluto or plano texas does not matter. Where are you going?
Romans 10:9 helps with this and remember that 2 Cor 3:3 says,

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
Paul declares believers to be letters of Christ. What are others reading when they see you?

This book is great!!.......2006-04-07

God took Jesse to heaven to give people hope. Those that are botherd by this book need to take a look at there love walk. In the bible God transported Elijah to different places and took him up in a fiery chariot. Why would it be different now. God is the same yesterday today and forever!

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A Reporter's Notebook on Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T.

Average customer rating:

Comprehensive historical overview of a complex subject.
Where do we come in?
Read alone at night for the full effect!
First rate read
First half is good. Second half is silly.

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A Reporter's Notebook on Alien Abduction, UFOs, and the Conference at M.I.T.
C. D. B. Bryan
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140195270

Amazon.com

Inspired perhaps by this summer's blockbuster film adaptation of Carl Sagan's Contact, a handful of nonfiction works have been reissued, all of which explore the possibility that we are not alone. C.D.B. Bryan's Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind--an engrossing work written for those skeptical about extraterrestrial visitors--is a compilation of testimonials and interviews about alien abductions. Bryan's sources, interviewed at a five-day academic conference held at M.I.T., include psychiatrists, researchers, science writers, "ufologists," and abductees, including John Mack, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard and author of Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. In addition, Close Encounters includes transcripts from hypnotherapy sessions with self-described "abductees." Bryan, journalist and author of Friendly Fire (1976), blends a reporter's objectivity with great compassion for the traumatized victims of these mysterious and horrific violations.

Customer Reviews:

Comprehensive historical overview of a complex subject........2006-08-04

C.D.B. Bryan's journalistic report of his attendance at a huge UFO & alien abduction conference in the early 1990's held at M.I.T. is a clearly written and fair minded look at a complicated and often controversial subject.

Despite the fact that most recent polls indicate that the majority of Americans & indeed the world believe "we're not alone", there are many who refuse to accept or are fearful of discussing the alien abduction phenomenon. Similarly, even when UFO enthusiasts come to agreement about various elements within their own community, there are breaks in the ranks in terms of everything from the effective use of hypnotic regression to the incredibly disturbing notion of alien/human hybrids being harvested.

It can all be dizzyingly confusing and even discouraging for the newly interested and so Bryan's book remains one of the more well organized and objective treatments on the subject. The author never tries to sway the reader in any direction. He stays steadfast to his job of reporting what he saw and trying to make some sense of it without being judgmental or partial to a particular mindset.

In-depth, informative, solidly entertaining and yes at times even patently unbelievable, but it's never boring nor a waste of your time. This would be a great starting point for the novice researcher and a great reference book for the seasoned UFO devotee. I subtracted one star for lack of photos, since a few photos of conference participants would have been a welcome addition and personal touch to this otherwise excellent book.

Where do we come in?.......2005-07-08

This book added to my suspician of a government cover up, opened the pandoras box to Alien abduction, government cover-up, military technology, Similarities between everyone abductee. Theories on all of this and more kept me reading this book cover to cover. Skeptics that want to remain skeptical should not read this book. If you have a closed mind but dont want it to be pried open do not read this book. However anyone else should definitely pick up a copy. Every question I had became answered and questions I never asked were asked and answered. It blows your mind at what could be and what is going on out there. With the help of this book I have come to believe that the government is hostile toward whatever it is that IS out there. We had no part in deciding their welcome, who knows what is to come.

Read alone at night for the full effect!.......2004-09-28

I am nearing the end of this book and have found it incredibly interesting and just as frightening!

I was skeptical about the reports of alien abductions until I started reading this. Now it takes me a while to pluck up the courage to turn off the lights when I stop reading each night!

A definite must-read for all you skeptics!

First rate read.......2004-07-31

If this book is fiction, it stands up all the way. If not its a bonus, but a pretty scary one if we`re under that much control. What do I think? I underwent a total paradigm shift every time I opened the book so perhaps the question is unfair.

First half is good. Second half is silly........2003-06-17

The books starts out well. The author is attending a conference at MIT about abductions by flying saucers. He's skeptical but respectful. He introduces you to the experts, the scholars, and the abductees. So far, so good.

But in the second half, he gives you LENGTHY descriptions of hypnosis sessions with a pair of abductees --- two women whose stories start off where you'd expect and then get crazier as they progress.

Actually, "crazy" is the wrong word. "Implausible" or "transparent" would be better. The two women need to add a little extra juice to their stories to keep your attention, so they add more alien beings, more strange events, and new places to explore.

This book would be a useful addition to the dozen-or-so books on UFO adbuctions if the second half was dropped. As I read it, my mind changed from skeptical and entertained (why DO so many people say they were abducted by flying saucers?) to cringing with embarassment (the Nordic E.T. in the giant cowboy hat was too much).

Average customer rating:

Also interesting for birders

All of My Stories Are True

Utterly amazing!

Prospecting for the nuggets of the human condition

Eminently Enjoyable. Buy it!!!

The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer: Close Encounters with Strangers
Eric Hansen
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea

Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo

Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu

ASIN: 0375421262
Release Date: 2004-10-12

Book Description

Eric Hansen is an intrepid traveler with a keenly perceptive eye and an appreciation for the odd and unusual. He will go anywhere and try anything. Through it all he manages to capture the most revealing conversations and the most transporting moments in his travels, from the Maldives to Sacramento, from Cannes to Borneo and far beyond.

Hansen writes about the mind-altering experience of drinking kava in Vanuatu and about heartrending moments working at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying Destitute in Calcutta. He joins a grieving husband searching for his dead wife’s wedding ring at a crash site in the Borneo rain forest. He recounts his miraculous survival of Cyclone Tracy on a fishing boat off the north coast of Australia, and he befriends an elderly Russian woman who would prepare catered dinners for George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky in her tiny Manhattan kitchen while drug dealers were shot to death in the downstairs lobby. He spends time with an ornithologist who studies endangered ants and the sex lives of banana slugs—and takes topless dancers on bird-watching expeditions.

Each essay is a passionate experience of life refracted through the eyes and voice of a singularly evocative and original writer.

Customer Reviews:

Also interesting for birders.......2007-07-26

This is what I wrote to a USA forum of birders (birdwatchers):
Eric Hansen, well known from his impressive travel stories located in Yemen and Borneo, has published a collection of short stories titled the Bird Man and the Lap Dancer - Close Encounters with Strangers. The main story is about a real wildlife biologist in California and the interest a few female 'special club' dancers developed for going out with him to go birdwatching. It's not hard to believe how weird this story is, but possibly in a different way from what you think. Even though birding practically disappears from halfway this 45 pages long story, it's interesting enough from the birding perspective alone. There is even some serious talk about birding, like the standardising of bird census techniques in the USA. Good to know that these subjects have made it to the world literature!
The other eight stories are not about birding but often show Hansen's great gift in describing outdoor atmosphere.

All of My Stories Are True.......2007-07-11

My Aunt Dagmar once told me - `All of my stories are true and some of them actually happened.' I strongly believe that is a sentiment shared by Eric Hansen.

"The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer" is an excellent read. Hansen is a first-rate writer and has no problem holding the reader's interest from one page to the next and from story to story. I was somewhat surprised to find that the first story was a character study about a relationship between two women rather than a travel story per se. However, as I read on, Hansen made me realize that travel is not just about place, but also about the people the traveler will come across in his or her journeys and I grew to appreciate the subtitle - "Close Encounters with Strangers."

I am not at all disappointed in the tales the author has to relate. But, deep down I feel that is mostly what they are - tales. This is especially true of the title story. Perhaps I come to this conclusion because in this story Hansen at times seems to lose his narrative thread and delve a little too deeply and a little too long into the psyche of the characters rather than the encounter. This story, to me, feels like a fantasy and firmly embeds this book in to the growing genre of "creative nonfiction."

While I would not place this book in the Travel section, I do highly recommend it to any one who is interested in reading about colorful people in exotic settings.

Utterly amazing!.......2007-05-01

Highest recommendation! How much living can one man fit into his years? I'd guess Eric Hansen can answer that as well as any person alive today. Some reviewers have praised the chapter "Life Lessons from Dying Strangers" as the best of the book. While I thoroughly loved it, "Cooking with Madame Zoya" brought a lump to my throat as I read about this spunky, independent woman making a life in a neighborhood most men would never consider entering--and receiving help from the most unexpected of sources! What a story!
"Three Nights on the Mountain" will give you chills. "The Ghost Wind" will renew your faith in native intelligence and perception. And "The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer" will leave you shaking your head in wonder at the amazing variety of people in the world.
Read this book!

Prospecting for the nuggets of the human condition.......2006-12-19

This is an unusual book and for many people it will be the title that will first beckon. It was loaned to me by a close friend and once I started it I found that I couldn't wait to find out where the next essay led. As a result I turned the last page after a four hour plane trip and was sorry that there wasn't more. This is not to say that there aren't some essays that are more successful than others but each illumines a facet of this amazing life and planet that you are unlikely to read about anywhere else. In many cases it is the juxtaposition of people,their circumstances, and their associations that makes this book unique. Hansen has lived a fascinating and unusual life. In his willingness to take risks and to say "yes," before he really understands what is in store he has opened himself up to the richness of life. It was great fun to go along for the ride.

Eminently Enjoyable. Buy it!!!.......2006-09-06

As a hardcore birder and a former lap dancer, there was no way I could resist this book. I approached the title essay with some trepidation; as an ex-stripper who chafes at the typical stereotypes, I tend to take a defensive stance when reading or viewing an outsider's depiction of 'exotic' dancers. In this case, I needn't have worried. Hansen's encounter with "Layla" reminded me of so many of the intelligent and charismatic women I have met in stripclubs; it was simply one of the best depictions of this type of dancer that I have ever encountered anywhere. (Sure, there are women who conform to the negative stereotypes as well...and Layla perhaps glosses over some of the negative aspects of the industry during her conversation with the author...but still. I stayed in the industry as long as I did partly because I met so many fascinating, wise & funny women in the clubs. I thank Mr. Hansen for giving us a glimpse of this reality.) His attempts to illuminate the subculture of the friendly neighborhood stripclub also mostly hit the mark. (However, he does get a few bird-related details wrong--things only a total birdgeek would notice.)

The other stories in this book are wonderful, too. I especially loved "Cooking with Madame Zoya" and "Life at the Grand Hotel." He is a fine writer--his prose is straightforward and mostly unembellished, but deeply affecting in its simplicity. Despite Mr. Hansen's incredible adventures, there is no bluster here. The writing is not "pretty" or showoff-y, but gentle, quiet, and surprisingly winsome.

I highly recommend this eminently readable volume. Upon completion, you will want to invite the author to dinner (or take him out birding, or buy him a lapdance...or all three. Anyway, I did. :))

Enjoy!

Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations (American Encounters/Global Interactions)

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Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations (American Encounters/Global Interactions)

Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822320991

Book Description

New concerns with the intersections of culture and power, historical agency, and the complexity of social and political life are producing new questions about the United States’ involvement with Latin America. Turning away from political-economic models that see only domination and resistance, exploiters and victims, the contributors to this pathbreaking collection suggest alternate ways of understanding the role that U.S. actors and agencies have played in the region during the postcolonial period.
Exploring a variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century encounters in Latin America, these theoretically engaged essays by distinguished U.S. and Latin American historians and anthropologists illuminate a wide range of subjects. From the Rockefeller Foundation’s public health initiatives in Central America to the visual regimes of film, art, and advertisements; these essays grapple with new ways of conceptualizing public and private spheres of empire. As such, Close Encounters of Empire initiates a dialogue between postcolonial studies and the long-standing scholarship on colonialism and imperialism in the Americas as it rethinks the cultural dimensions of nationalism and development.

Playing President: My Close encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush i, Reagan, and Clinton - and How they did not prepare me for George W. Bush

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A Loose Collection of Impressions
An impressive collection of informative interviews by award-winning "Los Angeles Times" journalist Robert Sheer
Essential Civic Education & Fun To Read

Playing President: My Close encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush i, Reagan, and Clinton - and How they did not prepare me for George W. Bush
Robert Scheer
Manufacturer: Akashic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1933354011

Book Description

Robert Scheer's interviews with and profiles of US presidents have shaped journalism history. Scheer developed close journalistic relationships with Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush I. His reporting on them had a tangible impact on national debate, such as the eminent 1976 Playboy interview in which Jimmy Carter, the then-presidential candidate, admitted to have lusted in his heart; and the 1980 interview with the L.A. Times, during which Bush I confessed to Scheer his dream of a "winnable nuclear war."

In Playing President, Robert Scheer offers an unparalleled insight into the presidential mind. He analyses each administration since Nixon, and including George W. Bush, offering insights that will surprise the reader-particularly those with rigid preconceptions about the decision-making processes of our leaders. The volume will also include reprints of Scheer's famous presidential interviews, along with previously unpublished interview transcripts and select previous writings.

Robert Scheer is the author of six books, including Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death: Essays on the Pornography of Power; With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War; and America After Nixon: The Age of Multinationals. Along with Christopher Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry, he is the coauthor of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq (Seven Stories/Akashic). Scheer is currently a clinical professor of communications at the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California. He is a nationally syndicated columnist based at the Los Angeles Times, a contributing editor at the Nation, and a host of NPR-affiliate KCRW's Left, Right, and Center.

Customer Reviews:

A Loose Collection of Impressions.......2006-10-15

The title of this book suggests something more than it is, a collection of the interviews that Scheer conducted in fleeting moments during the election campaigns of the presidents named. As such, the interviews are well worth reprinting and rereading, especially that with the enigmatic Jimmy Carter. One might have wished, however, that Scheer would have composed his retrospective thoughts about these interviews more thoroughly, evaluated the package more cogently. The book-in-hand seems just a bit lazy.

An impressive collection of informative interviews by award-winning "Los Angeles Times" journalist Robert Sheer .......2006-06-08

Playing President is an impressive collection of informative interviews by award-winning "Los Angeles Times" journalist Robert Sheer with the presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush Senior. Deftly compiled and analyzed to create a sound basis for understanding each of these former presidents in terms of their respective parts played in the national debates and issues of their respective administrations, Playing President offers readers a wealth of insights into their lives, minds, and decisions which had historically influenced and shaped the American political front during the course of the second half of the twentieth century. A core addition to academic library "Political Science" reference collections, Playing President is very strongly recommended for non-specialist general readers with an interest in the American presidency for its wide-range of informative and first hand accounts drawn from direct interviews with the men who occupied that august office.

Essential Civic Education & Fun To Read.......2006-05-11

Let's forget about the founding fathers for a while. The recent flood of books on America's first generation of politicians has often been informative, but none is as immediately essential as Robert Scheer's new book on American presidents during the last four decades. Instead of revising portraits of men we recognize from old paintings, textbooks and wrinkled currency, Scheer gives us a study of the men we know from the televisions in our living rooms.

The book, delightfully titled, "Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton--and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush" provides a real "fair and balanced" examination of recent presidential politics. But it also provides an incisive critique of our selection process. "After decades," Scheer writes, "I came to the conclusion that the process endured in obtaining electoral power tends to be the controlling influence on the candidate's behavior once in office." It's a frightening thought, but in chapter after chapter, he illustrates this point and identifies a system that, "stupefies rather than educates."

As a veteran teacher of history, government and politics I have learned that there is something dangerously fictional about all American presidents. Ask most high school students (or their parents) about any of the presidents since Nixon and you will be struck by the shallowness and predictability of the responses. Unfortunately, most of the pre-university textbooks to which we subject these students do little other than reinforce the caricatures. Playing President facilitates a better understand of the complexity behind the sound bites and rescues some of our immediate past from myth.

Of course, "Playing" is the indispensable word in the book's title. The book documents six men playing president in the manner of children playing at being what they think they should be while being watched by relatives at a holiday dinner. Scheer's book offers disheartening evidence that "playing" at president has become more important than "being" president.

Readers are treated to reflective and penetrating portraits beginning with Richard Nixon. Painfully aware of his own awkwardness, but always thinking about policy. Nixon offers advice that would be useful today if W. would listen, "Periods of confrontation," Nixon said, "strengthen dictatorships, and periods of peace weaken them."

Carter is portrayed as consciously creating himself as a character in his own version of a Faulkner short story. His Playboy interview should be required re-reading simply for all of the commentary that outshines the famous lust in Carter's heart. In the 1976 essay, "Jimmy, We Hardly Know Y'all" Scheer paints a vivid picture of a complex American South uneasy about confronting its own history. When he asks Carter's mother about the history of an integrated communal farm not far from Carter's Plains, Miss Lillian snaps back, "Why do you want to bring that up? It's over with."

Ronald Reagan knew just how to turn his head toward the camera. He was good at playing. Scheer documents how Reagan came alive on stage, so that even when he is spouting complete nonsense his audience wants to believe him. Summing up this talent for illusion, Scheer reports that, "Reagan can be magical on the stump, because he can convince even a cynical observer that he is a highly moral, honest, and purposeful man... [and] that allows the audience to ignore serious gaps in his knowledge, his lackluster eight years as Governor, and the reality that his own family life has been quite disorderly....people want the image more than the truth."

He was a hard act to follow. His successor, George Herbert Walker Bush, is the impossibly maladroit player, uncomfortable and arrogant at the same time. Scheer's encounters with this first Bush are interesting to read and often enjoyably hostile. Consider this bizarre response to a simple question about the Pentagon Papers, "I told you," snapped Bush, "I don't have a judgment; I don't have - I don't remember all that ancient history." And then, pages later, at the interview's end, Scheer asks him to be more explicit in reflecting on a situation in the middle east. And again Bush responds with revealing and angry impatience, "No, I couldn't. I've given you that, and that's all I'll give you." This is fun stuff to read and it would certainly liven up a classroom.

Bill Clinton comes off as a natural actor, always very, very smart, but sometimes twisting a fact or two for convenience. In the middle of a long chat, Scheer asks him to point out the best example of the get-off-welfare program that the Arkansas Governor had been touting. Clinton tells him to check out "Project Success" in Forrest City, but when he gets there he finds no evidence of any real project - successful or not. The reader comes away from this section convinced of both Clinton's unrealized potential and his real accomplishments.

The last section on George W. Bush is different from the others, but that much is hinted at by the best part of the title. Partly this difference is because Scheer has never engaged W. in an extended interview, but partly it is because George W. Bush really is different from all the others. The section title: George W. Bush - Perpetual Adolescence seemed to say it well enough. However, after reading the many columns that follow the introductory essay this reader preferred the title: George W. Bush - Dangerous Adolescent.

This is a serious and important book, but it is also a delight to read. If, like me, you have read some of the material before, reading it again forces one to recognize how vital it is to have reporters willing to spend the time, to listen, to investigate and to write of complexity. The clich? is that journalism is the first draft of history has been amended by suggesting an obvious tension between getting it first and getting it right. But over the years some journalists have gotten both. "Playing President" demonstrates that Robert Scheer has been both first and right for decades.

Close Encounters of the Bovine: Recollections of a Rural Veterinarian

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Wonderful!

Close Encounters of the Bovine: Recollections of a Rural Veterinarian
Rosalie Cooper-chase
Manufacturer: Johnson Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1555663788

Book Description

Rosalie Cooper-Chase, rural veternarian, often finds herself in what most would consider odd company. Her compassion and deep respect for cows makes them come alive as individuals, each worthy of consideration and care. In her book, Close Encounters of the Bovine, Rosalie tells her tales of caring for these misunderstood and often underestimated creatures, from delivering newborns to treating the sick and injured.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful!.......2006-04-30

One gets the idea that Dr. Cooper-Chase feels truly blessed and humbled to have been "chosen" for her profession as a veterinarian and that she has been privileged to witness the interaction between man and beast and the gifts that each has to offer the other. Her observation and explanation of procedures gives the reader a feeling of being at her side as she tends to the needs of her very fortunate patients. Told with lots of wit and sometimes bluntness, you feel her tenderness, outrage and diplomacy as she handles situations concerning her bovine patients and their owners. It's a wonderful collection of life's lessons through an animal lover's eyes. Looking forward to reading about her encounters with the feline and the canine!

Average customer rating:

Kitt does it again!!
Sweet Story heart warmer
Great Read!
Close Encounters Indeed
My very first Interracial Romance Novel.....

Close Encounters
Sandra Kitt
Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0451200489
Release Date: 2000-07-10

Amazon.com

In Close Encounters, author Sandra Kitt isn't satisfied with simply using the writer's method of developing two opposite characters and giving them a dramatic confrontation. Not only are her characters of different races, they're of different worlds, and "dramatic confrontation" doesn't begin to explain their meeting. Lee Grafton is a white policeman, and Carol Taggert is a black art professor. When Carol is wounded in a police bust--and Lee is the probable shooter--it seems inevitable that they should return to the comforts of what is familiar. But Carol and Lee both find that their lives have changed in ways they can share with no one else.

As in her previous works, including Between Friends, Family Affairs, and Significant Others, Sandra Kitt tackles the complexities of interracial relationships with a sensitivity and realism that acknowledges without simplifying the inherent challenges of such relationships in our culture. That Carol and Lee are joined together by a common trauma is not surprising. That they both carefully approach the relationship with awareness of the potential superficiality of that connection is authentic and true. As both characters begin to see beyond each other's initial appearance, their own sense of identity also evolves beyond their race and profession.

Kitt's writing is strong, her plot dramatic, and her voice refreshing. Close Encounters works equally well as a suspense novel or as a romance novel, but most readers will be able to appreciate the deeper values that Kitt is espousing. --Nancy R.E. O'Brien

Book Description

Bestselling author Sandra Kitt's work has been praised as "moving" (USA Today) and "tense, thoughtful, and sensual" (Library Journal). Close Encounters is the richly emotional story of two people struggling to make sense of their lives in the aftermath of a violent chance encounter....

Praise for Sandra Kitt:

"Kitt provides...unusual depth and sympathy to her widely diverse characters."-Publishers Weekly

"When it comes to romance, Sandra Kitt is simply without equal." -Valerie Wilson Wesley

"Sandra Kitt is carving out a unique place for herself in the world of women's fiction."-Jayne Ann Krentz

"Kitt continues to shatter stereotypes and open doors for writers and readers of popular women's fiction." -Minneapolis Star Tribune

Customer Reviews:

Kitt does it again!!.......2007-09-08

I'm an avid reader of Interracial romance novels, and I have to say that no one does it better than Sandra Kitt. The woman is a genius. Carol and Lee are some of her most memorable characters to date. This story has substance and of course romance. It's well written and the characters are well developed. I highly recommend this book. If I could give it 10 stars I would.

Also read these others by Sandra Kitt:

The Color of Love- Interracial romance classic
Between Friends- soon to be an Interracial romance classic
She's the One- not interracial but a classic nonetheless

Sweet Story heart warmer.......2007-02-05

This really was a classic feeling love story. The cop drama and all was awesome. I work in that field so I can absolutely relate to the stresses and the constant looking over your shoulder etc. Was very accurate portrayal. Would have liked a little racier intimate scenes but it was a great book all the same.

Great Read!.......2007-01-17

I read this book several years ago and I recently read it again. It didn't take me long to remember why I liked it so much. This book had me so caught up that I found it extremely hard to put down. Definitely a great read.

Close Encounters Indeed.......2006-10-07

Sandra Kitt's novel Close Encounters centers around the lives of Carol Taggert, an innocent black woman, and Lee Grafton, a white police officer, and the night that brought the two of them together. It deals with their individual lives and emotions and the circumstance that binds them and which threatens to keep them apart. This book tackles race issues between police and minorities especially in the inner cities, people's personal ideas about race and society's issues with interracial families and relationships.

The main characters and some of the supporting characters - up to a point, are genuine and empathetic. They are people dealing with issues such as what part they play in the world and what happens when they no longer have fulfillment in the things that used to make them happy. These are issues that most of us have probably gone through or will go through at some point in our lives. We can imagine these people living in the real world as well as the world of fiction.

The author's use of language is straightforward. There are police jargons, mainly at the beginning, but not anything that requires translating. Ms. Kitt also makes excellent use of foreshadowing. The book starts out with action, but you sense that there's much more about to happen. Although we anticipated what would happen when Sandra left her house that night, the effect was not any less powerful. The use of Carol's dog, something that she associates with love and safety, as a catalyst for such a traumatic event shows a great sense of irony on the writer's part. The death of her dog is symbolic of the death of her former self. That night when she was shot place many things into perspective for her. The issues that she was dealing with regarding her race did not seem as important when her life was on the line. She realized that family had nothing to do with color, but had everything to do with love. This was a lesson she needed to learn before she could fall in love with someone of another race.

Lee's doubts about being an officer and regarding the sacrifices he had to make in order to maintain his career, escalated after the shooting. He was no longer just doubting his choices, he was also doubting some of the choices of the police institution. Having Lee make a conscious effort to salvage the relationship between him and his daughter showed the beginning of his emotional growth. That growth allowed him to have an open mind and allowed him to put his heart on the line even though it might get broken.

The external conflict has much to say about the black experience. It's dealing with the issue of police shootings that was prevalent in the 90s . The fact that the story is set in a city like New York, with a white officer patrolling a black neighborhood, in itself tells the story of police not understanding the neighborhoods and the people who reside in those communities. Carol as a victim feels pressure by Matt, her black ex-husband, to press charges against the police department. Matt feels that it is her duty as a black person to take a stand. Carol, on the other hand, does not want to become the poster child for the ongoing war between police and blacks. She realizes that a terrible mistake was made on the part of Lee, but she also realizes that most people would not think of it that way, they would simply be out for blood. Carol is worried about what people would think about her not only being shot by a white officer, but falling in love with him. It might seem like a betrayal to some black people that she would have anything to do with the "enemy" especially on such a personal level. She was also gun-shy about dealing with the media, especially after what she went through as a child, when her white parents were trying to adopt her. Like most people would agree, it is a harrowing experience watching your life hashed out in a pubic forum and having people make decisions about with whom and where you belong.

The book allows us a view into our own thoughts and some of the prejudices that we carry - even if we are not yet willing to admit them. The idea that a white man and a black woman could be hopelessly in love with one another, seem so unbelievable to many. There's a part in the book where Lee's black Captain is reprimanding him about his relationship with Carol. His disbelief about the fact that Lee and Carol's relationship could be based on anything more than sex shows the underlying thoughts of many in our society. Is it possible that a white man could and would love a black woman and choose to make a life with her? Could and would he want her for more than sexual curiosity or as a more than just a mistress? The irony is that Lee was in a strictly sexual relationship with a white woman but was willing to give that up because he fell in love with Carol.

I found this book very interesting and very well written. The author seems intimately aware of her and does an excellent job developing and portraying said idea. Many of her novels focuses on the theme of interracial families and interracial relationships. This book shows that love can bloom under many circumstances and can bloom between very different people. Mixed raced relationships are happening whether or not society chooses to accept them. Some people, like Carol and Lee, have a harder time with it than others, but that doesn't diminish their love in any capacity.

Sources:
1 - All About Romance - Desert Isle Keeper Reviews

2 - Editorial Reviews - Amazon. com

My very first Interracial Romance Novel............2006-02-25

Even after reading this, I had no idea that there was a market for IR Novels. I thought this was as good as it got. I have had this book for years, actually when it first came out and I have read it several times. Now since finding out the market for IR, I have whipped it out again to compare. I did like this book alot. It was a great storyline. The characters were great. The relationship between Carol and Lee blooms from a traumatic experience. Race comes into play, only because of Carol and the tragedy she goes through. I haven't read another similiar type IR romance like this and I have read several IR's since this first purchase. I highly recommend her books.

Close Encounters (Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective #21)

Average customer rating:

Nancy Drew Tackles UFOs

Close Encounters (Nancy Drew: All New Girl Detective #21)
Carolyn Keene
Manufacturer: Aladdin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1416912452

Book Description

When George, Bess and I headed to Brody's Junction, Vermont, to help George's cousin with her café's website and enjoy a brief vacation, we were looking forward to some downtime -- not to landing in the middle of a media circus.

Hundreds of tourists have invaded the town to watch purported UFO sightings. Odder still are reports of townspeople being abducted, and the strange clues that seem to point to little green men as the culprits. All this speculation has the town going wild, and I hope to have a close encounter with some hard facts before things spin entirely out of control....

Customer Reviews:

Nancy Drew Tackles UFOs.......2007-02-26

This is another good book in the Nancy Drew series. Nancy, Bess, and George travel to Vermont so George can help her cousin with her website. They arrive in the middle of a UFO flap. Nancy, Bess, and George face some real danger while solving the real reasons for the UFO sightings. This is a good book for any Nancy Drew fans or anyone looking for a quick. fun read. Boys or adults should not ignore books like Nancy Drew. All of the books in this series (and the graphic novels) have been good reads.

CE-5 : Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind

Average customer rating:

Excellent compendium of UFO case files
Interesting - then boring!
Professional and compelling!
This is a book worth pondering.
Disappointing.

CE-5 : Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind
Richard Haines
Manufacturer: Sourcebooks Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1570714274

Book Description

Are We Alone in the Universe?

CE-5: a report of deliberate human behavior which was followed by an obvious response from an unidentified object and/or humanoid. The response of the craft or being included effects suggesting its response was not merely coincidental.

CE-5 is the ultimate reference for authentic data on the hottest topic in UFO studies. Each file probes reports where humans around the world have seen and deliberately signalled to unidentified aerial objects or beings. Sometimes the contact results in friendly interaction with the unknown. Other outcomes are more shocking, with consequences of abduction or "medical" examination.

Exhaustively researched and thoroughly referenced, CE-5 was compiled from technical data, research and eyewitness interviews. Enthusiasts, skeptics, and the just plain curious can quantify each case study to reach their own conclusions.

Discover the reality of human-alien interaction: --How valid are eyewitness accounts?
--What best characterizes alien behavior?
--Are aggressive reactions typical of aliens or humans?
--How do aliens communicate?

Richard F. Haines, Ph.D., retired NASA research scientist and former Chief of the Space Humans Factors Office at Ames Research Center, was Assistant Professor of Psychology at San Jose State University before moving to the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science as Sr. Research Scientist where he conducted advanced R&D on multimedia telecommunications for NASA's International Space Station. He is now employed by RECOM Technology, Inc., and has written five other books and NASA/FAA Technical Reports. He holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Michigan State University.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent compendium of UFO case files.......2005-04-13

I found this book contained a wealth of information.

Dr. Haines has done his homework and provided a wealth of documented case histories to do with the UFO phenomenon. He brings a credibility and analytical bent to the realm of UFO research that has been and continues to be sorely lacking.

Interesting - then boring!.......2003-06-27

The case-studies were interesting! The rest was B O R I N G!

You want info on UFO's? Rent seasons 1-9 of "The X-Files" on DVD or the X-Files movie, "Fight The Future". At least you'll be able to stay awake, and it won't cost you nearly as much money.

Professional and compelling!.......2001-04-24

CE-5, the newest book by internationally acclaimed UFO expert Richard Haines, Ph.D. (with Steven Greer, M.D., and Mark Rodeghier, Ph.D.), is a professional, riveting, and in places, mind-boggling resource for serious UFO researchers.

For me, reading CE-5 was an absorbing and engrossing experience.

In 435 pages, in two major parts, CE-5 chronologically presents abstracts of 242 of the world's most fascinating UFO sighting reports. Part I discusses apparent communications between witnesses and UFOs; Part II discusses apparent communications between witnesses and alien beings.

But what exactly do you get when you read CE-5? A lot.

Case 14: A disk 1,000 feet in diameter and 12 feet thick was seen by multiple witnesses as it crossed 150 miles of Minnesota countryside over a period of five hours. The moment a witness switched his truck's headlights on, the object changed color from white to red.

Case 35: A witness ran to within about 20 feet of a landed UFO. Two days later he became very ill - reduced body temperature, black vomit, diarrhea with blood in the stool - and two weeks later he died, supposedly from gastroenteritis, although a nearby scientific organization said his symptoms were similar to those caused by a lethal dose of gamma radiation.

Case 39: Two witnesses shined their flashlights at a mysterious aerial object that had landed. The flashlight beams bent up 90 degrees about 18 inches in front of the object.

Case 49: The crew of a US Army tank in Germany, at night, saw a bright UFO flying beneath the overcast. When the object approached, the tank driver flashed the tank's searchlights, and the UFO echoed the flashes. At one point the UFO appeared extremely bright but even then it did not illuminate the clouds above it or the ground beneath it.

Case 75: A medical doctor flashed a 500,000 candlepower spotlight at a UFO, in sequences of three, two, and five flashes. The UFO echoed each sequence, and this apparent communication was witnessed by 39 bystanders.

Case 110: Russian jet fighters intercepted a UFO, fired their machine guns at it, but the UFO zig-zagged and out-maneuvered the interceptors.

Case 183: A police officer drove up to within 40 feet of a landed UFO and saw red lights inside the object. When the police car's headlights finally illuminated the object, the red lights began flashing. Then the police car's engine died and the officer's flashlight failed to work. The officer was unable to account for about 30 minutes of his shift around the time of the sighting.

Case 207: A priest and several dozen other witnesses waved to human-like "people" standing on a UFO that hovered near the mission. The "people" waved back. This apparent communication continued for about three hours.

(Another report in this Part of CE-5 describes a man who jabbed his knife at a "creature's hairy body," only to feel the knife glance off as if it had struck a rock. Still another UFO-related fight involved a young man and a being the witness said "felt like metal." And a South American truck driver fired his pistol at three 13 to 16 feet tall "beings in human form" that exited a landed UFO.)

Case 216: In Italy, a farmer saw a UFO land and then saw three "dwarfs" emerge from it. The farmer, who heard the "dwarfs" talking to each other in an unknown tongue, got his shotgun. It failed to fire when he attempted to pull the trigger, and the gun suddenly felt so heavy that he had to drop it. He felt paralyzed. The "dwarfs" took some of the farmer's rabbits, jumped back into the UFO, and as it flew away, the farmer fired his shotgun at it.

Case 218: (This event is too frightening to describe here, but it is one of the most well-documented UFO-alien-gunfire cases on record.)

Case 223: (This event is also too frightening to detail here. It culminated in the witness' death from leukemia two months later.)

In spite of its often terrifying content, CE-5 reads quickly and easily because its abstracts are short and concise. Abstracts are followed by citations, and often by rhetorical questions or comments. (Those comments helped me see a couple of technical subtleties I'd overlooked.) More references and citations are given at the end of chapters and major parts. The book is indexed and has tables of statistical data.

CE-5 is clearly the best review of the world's most intriguing communications-related UFO reports, all condensed to essentials and accompanied by photos, sketches, and diagrams. (Even though I've been an avid UFO researcher since 1947 and have read about 125 books on the subject, most of CE-5's reports were new to me.)

But while I think CE-5 is vital reading for most adults, I also think its reports are too frightening for elderly people susceptible to stroke or heart attack, and for children.

(To underscore my concern here, please understand that I'm a military veteran, a pilot, I'm well grounded in the physical sciences, and I'm a technical researcher and writer -- see http://www.principiapub.com -- but I confess that I found myself _quite_ disturbed by several CE-5 reports.)

In summary, CE-5 is more than a compelling and often stunning series of UFO reports. It is also more than an enormous feat of technical research by Drs. Haines, Greer, and Rodeghier.

My hope is that the public and the scientific community will soon recognize CE-5 for what it really is, the most professional contribution yet toward understanding and solving this century's greatest scientific mystery.

This is a book worth pondering........1999-08-13

It took a lot of courage to put together a document of this nature, especially for someone working within the NASA culture, as Dr. Haines does. It's a reminder for all of us who are interested in the question of extraterrestrial intelligence to keep an open mind to the possibility that ETI has discovered us and can physically get here. I am always amused when pompous scientists arrogantly dismiss the UFO question without ever having looked into it themselves. It stands to reason that older technological civilizations may have developed the capacity to place our violent species under some form of long-term monitoring. Dr. Haines is a pioneer who has my utmost respect.

Bob

Disappointing........1999-07-24

Most of the cases described in this book were decades old and previously published elsewhere. The author's main contribution was to categorize synopses of numerous ufo encounters. I didn't find any new conclusions or insights. And, by the way, if Richard F. Haines, Ph.D. happens to read this: "I think therefore I am" is generally attributed to Descartes -- not Plato.

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