Melissa Gurdus Meiselman

ABSOLUTELY ABSORBING STORY WITH COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF ASPERGER’S SYNDROME

Revisado: 10-29-18

I enjoyed this book but did find it somewhat repetitive as far as the symptoms of ASPERGER’S goes. Ms. Picoult repeats many of these over and over which slows the progression of the narrative.

I have taught youngsters on the autistic spectrum as a teacher of special education as well as students having other emotional disabilities, so Jacob is accurately depicted in my opinion.

In the mainstream high school where I taught there were special education classrooms. We special education teachers were consulting often by teachers in regular classes who happened to have one of our students in their classroom.

I am not going to say more because there would be a spoiler alert and I wouldn’t have liked to know more as I began reading this book. I didn’t read any reviews because I had the book and purchased the Audible version to go with it.

The narration was good enough to just listen as well as to read along. Not all Audible narrators read as clearly as the team who performed this book.

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CERTAINLY A STRONG STORY WORTH READING AND LISTENING TO

Revisado: 09-23-18

I am at the point in the Tarzan series where he goes to the center of the Earth and and Pellucidar. I wanted to learn more about this before reading the episode in the Tarzan book since I had a feeling there would be details I should know beforehand. I definitely feel prepared to read to Tarzan Pellucidar episode now.

I have thoroughly enjoyed both reading and listening to the Audible rendition and highly recommend it to all who might be interested. As I was reading it I also had the thought that it would make an awesome movie. Although the whole thing is ten hours long, the details and action would make for a much longer and very colorful movie. There are enough detailed descriptions for the producers to recreate the prehistoric creatures and humanoids of various types plus the scenes of various types.

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WOW, IMAGINE POST-APOCALYPTIC NOVEL WRITTEN IN 1912

Revisado: 07-09-18

This was far different from “The Call Of The Wild” and “White Fang.” Still, it was well thought out and somewhat believable. Since Jack London could not possibly be aware of the immense advances made by advanced civilizations, the world 60 years after the plague of 2013 would not be as savage as he portrays it. At least, I do not think so.

I certainly enjoyed both reading and at the same time listening to the story being narrated. The reader did a great job.

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AN AWESOME STORY BROUGHT ALIVE BY A WONDERFUL NARRATION

Revisado: 07-08-18

I read “White Fang” as a child many years ago but both the story and the wolf named White Fang came alive for me in such a way by both listening and following along with the ebook in such a way that would not have been possible it I used just one way, alone. I believe that in some sort of way, in my senior years I have become learning disabled and can no longer merely read the printed word.

I have retreated to reading the works of a Jack London because I am reading Les Miserables and Victor Hugo goes off the main story line and gives us, his readers, history lessons; in this Case Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. I have perhaps five hours left before picking up the storyline. I downloaded one additional Jack London Work and then I will return to Les Miserables and the remaining history lesson.

At least Jack London speaks of the various “Laws” and their definitions right within the story line.

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THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO IS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS EVER WRITTEN

Revisado: 06-28-18

Bill Homewood, the narrator brought this masterpiece alive with his wonderful French accent and terrific pronunciation of the many French names, words and places. He performed the many parts expertly which made the many persons come alive to me. I had read this book on three separate occasions, but this last time with the narration and following the text, my experience was understandingly heightened greatly. I seemed to see things that I didn’t recall seeing in the past. I loved the ending and will remember it, always.

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A MASTERPIECE AND A JOURNEY BACK IN TIME TO THE AGE OF THE CONSTITUTION AND A TIME MACHINE WITH A JOURNEY INTO THE FUTURE

Revisado: 06-08-18

This is a review of “The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look At The Federal Reserve” by, G. Edward Griffin. Unless a passage is in quotation marks, the passage is by the author who has invited us, his readers, to cut and paste these passages to send to our Congressmen showing that printing money (fiat money)is still unconstitutional. This is an insidious form of taxation against the poorest of Americans.

The author skillfully researched the material to make his case and his presentation was like reading a mystery story or a whodunnit. I felt compelled to read it in under a week and am nearing the conclusion of this mighty tale.

I am both reading the Kindle version and listening to the Audible version which moves through the narrative at a wonderful pace. Mark Bramhall, the narrator, helps drive the engine of this tome forward relentlessly and he enhances the listening experience so much so, that I look forward to listening and reading each day. It is certainly a tour de force.

The Constitution prohibits both the states and the federal government from issuing fiat (paper) money. This was the deliberate intent of the Founding Fathers who had bitter experience with fiat (paper) money before and especially during the Revolutionary War. Government, at any level, is clearly prohibited by the Constitution from printing (fiat) paper tender.

After ratification of the Constitution, a dollar would contain 371.25 grains of fine silver, and all items in commerce, including other coins, were to be measured in value against that standard. The logic voiced by Jefferson could not be ignored. Two years later, after carefully examining the actual weight and fineness of the Spanish dollars currently in circulation, Congress defined the dollar.

After ratification of the Constitution, a dollar would contain 371.25 grains of fine silver, and all items in commerce, including other coins, were to be measured in value against that standard. Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, in his 1791 report to Congress, urged the establishment of a federal mint and also presented a powerful case for maintaining an inviolable standard for the coins to be produced by that mint. He said:

“The dollar originally contemplated in the money transactions of this country, by successive diminutions of its weight and fineness, has sustained a depreciation of five per cent, and vet the new dollar has a currency in all payments in place of the old, with scarcely any attention to the difference between them. The operation of this in depreciating the value of property depending upon past contracts, and ... of all other property is apparent.”

In the preceding quotation that Hamilton referred to both gold and silver coins, not merely silver. It was determined after careful analysis of the free-market that the value of gold at that time was approximately fifteen times the value of silver.

Contrary to popular misconception, Congress did not create a "gold dollar." (It didn't do that until fifty-seven years later in The Coinage Act of 1849.) In fact it reaffirmed that "the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars or units" and again defined those units as coins containing 371.25 grains of pure silver.

Oh yes, another thing. It set the death penalty for anyone who debases the nation's coinage; a law which, if enforced today, would wipe out the House of Representatives, the Senate, the managerial level of the Treasury Department, and the Presidency as well.

Perhaps the most important provision of this Act, however, was the establishment of what is called free coinage. Under free coinage, any citizen may take raw silver or gold to the mint and, for a nominal fee, have it converted into coins for personal use. Free coinage was to become an important part of the American success story, and it lasted until the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 which, not only terminated it, but even made it illegal for citizens to possess gold.

The December 16, 1789 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette declared: "Since the federal constitution has removed all danger of our having a paper tender, our trade is advanced fifty per cent."

Furthermore, the federal deficit, which amounted to twenty-eight per cent of expenditures in 1792, dropped to twenty-one per cent in 1795. By 1802, the deficit had disappeared altogether and had been replaced by a surplus that was almost as large as the government's total spending.

On the specific subject of paper money without backing by gold or silver, Washington wrote: “We may one day become a great commercial and flourishing nation. But if in the pursuit of the means we should unfortunately stumble again on unfunded paper money or any similar species of fraud, we shall assuredly give a fatal stab to our national credit in its infancy.”

The product of these measures was a period of sound money and great economic prosperity, a period that would come to an end only when the next generation of Americans forgot to read their history and returned to the use of paper money and "bills of credit."

This, then, was the monetary blueprint laid down by the men who drafted our Constitution.

A future time machine of the author’s invention based upon factual information with the elimination of the federal reserve, the return to the use of silver coins including silver dollars and a brave new world order makes for a triumphant conclusion to this masterpiece.

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THIS IS AN AWESOME SAGA OF MY FAVORITE CITY, NEW YORK CITY

Revisado: 05-30-18

After reading the book and listening to the Audible I have to say whyI gave the outstanding performance of the reader only four stars. After the panic of 1907 when there was a bailout, a full hour of audio was skipped so I read this without the benefit of the audio. Why had the reader skipped this large portion?

I gave the overall story four stars four rather than five stars because the author totally omitted the huge Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and Russia into New York. My four grandparents emigrated to New York and settled in the Lower East Side Of New York City. They all went through Ellis Island but the author only showed an Italian family going through this process.

The capital of Jewish America at the turn of the century was New York's Lower East Side. This densely packed district of tenements, factories, and docklands had long been a starting point for recent immigrants, and hundreds of thousands of the new arrivals from Eastern Europe settled there upon arrival.

When a new Jewish immigrant first set foot on the Lower East Side, he or she stepped into a Jewish world. The earliest Eastern European Jews to settle there had quickly established synagogues, mutual-aid societies, libraries, and stores. Every major institution, from the bank to the grocery store to the social club to the neighborhood bookmaker, was Jewish-owned or Jewish-run, and everyone a Jewish immigrant might speak to in the course of daily business would likely be Jewish.

More than one-half of all Eastern European Jewish immigrants worked in manual occupations, predominantly in the garment industry. The Jewish neighborhoods of New York were home to countless tiny, airless sweatshop factories, where women, teenagers, and children worked long hours cutting, sewing, and finishing clothing for pennies per piece.

Sweatshops were not only unpleasant and exploitative—they could also be lethal. In the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911, nearly half of the 146 workers killed were Jewish teenage girls. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory in the book followed Anna, an Italian girl even though half the girls killed were Jewish. I find this to be very remiss on the part of the author.

The Lower East Side was a very crowded place to live. By the year 1900, the district was packed with more than 700 people per acre, making it the most crowded neighborhood on the planet. A typical tenement building occupied by Eastern European Jewish families might have consisted of three rooms where there lived a father, mother, twelve children, and six boarders. They sleep on the half-made clothing for beds.

I Googled the information about the huge Jewish Immigration to learn more about it and have shared some of what I have learned here.

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THIS SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING FOR ALL PERSONS

Revisado: 05-20-18

One way or another most people are touched by psychopaths whether these individuals are related or connected in some other way. This book will arm you so you are not deceived by the psychopaths amoung us. There are other books snd journal articles to round out the knowledge you get from reading this book. For sure, keep this book handy because you will need to refer to it as you navigate the dangerous waters of life inhabited by both sociopaths and psychopaths.

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BOTH THE STORY AND THE PERFORMANCES WERE TOTALLY AWESOME

Revisado: 04-21-18

This story is completely unique the way it goes back in time and goes forward a year or years at a time. At times we are shown the present time as Simon comes clean to Catherine. I will say no more because to do so will spoil the story for new readers.

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Very Disappointed

Revisado: 04-15-18

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

The prologue was excellent, but the rest of the book was extremely boring.

What could Andrew Mayne have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I liked the prologue, and bought the book because of this story. However the rest of the book was a chore to read.

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