1 comments about Computing and Computer Science: A First Course with PL/1.

1. The subtitle is: A First Course with PL/1. I have no idea what this means. It looks like all math in the book. Wouldn't a computer geek or mathematician professor love this?
   
   Obviously one of the very earliest computer texts, and over 400 pages, medium blue covers. Rare, highly recommended.

No comments about Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies Series 1 volume 12.

No comments about Structured Programming in Pl/I and Pl/C: A Problem Solving Approach.

No comments about ISO/IEC 6522:1992, Information technology - Programming languages - PL/1 general purpose subset.

No comments about Computers, Their Impact and Use: Structured Programming in PL/1.

5 comments about Tune in Anytime.

1. Not Cooney at her best but it was a fast and fairly entertaining read. Sophie's family has disintegrated around her. Her self-centered sister is at college and her father is divorcing his family to marry her roommate. Sophie's mother, Edith, is too busy being "one with nature and the cosmos" to defend her rights (or those of her daughters) in the divorce proceedings. As her world falls apart, Sophie has to find her own center and hold on for dear life. She has to become a family of one.
   
   Her goofy mother, selfish father and self absorbed sister made me wonder if Sophie was adopted. Cooney has written a book that does mirror the confusion and pain that kids feel when parents separate. Even though Sophie and her sister are young adults, they still need their parents. I just wish Cooney had let the bulldozer finish the job.



2. "Who was going to remember all of this when the family broke up? Not Mother. She wasn't involved. Not Dad. He didn't even know anything was breaking."
   
   Sophie Olivette lives in a small town with her father and mother. She loves how everything goes her way and nothing too disastrous happens. Yet.
   
   Marley has just gone off to college and Sophie is extremely excited. She won't have to fight with her sister and they will become closer than before. Little does she know, Sophie will need Marley more than she ever would. After her father's hidden love for Marley's roommate is revealed, her life will never be the same.
   
   Marley was on her usual visit home and introduced her new roommate, Persia, to the family. Soon after that, Sophie noticed unusual behavior in her father. He began to ask about Persia, -how they were getting along, how she was in school, and when she was coming back with Marley to visit. One day it was finally revealed that Mr. Olivette and Persia were in love and getting married. Sophie couldn't believe what she was hearing. Could this be true? Could her own father have a new love? From then on, Sophie did anything possible to make her father feel guilty.
   
   Sophie reacquaints herself with a few people and becomes better friends with them. Her friendship between Ted Larkman, a former classmate, has grown larger than ever, even to the point where they have stronger feelings for each other. Ted and his family know the problems the Olivettes are going through and decide they are going to help. Mrs. Olivette finds a half-completed "stone henge" on the Larkman's land. She wants to move the last stone there to re-join them by the winter solstice. It takes pure courage to help a family with this need and it is extremely brave of Ted and his family to try.
   
   If I could describe Tune in Anytime in one word I'd say surprising. Its soap opera-like content had me guessing what would happen in the next chapter. I couldn't possibly be bored reading it. Its detailed plot will absorb the reader and make them feel like they're right next to Sophie the whole way, like they're living out her life. Sophie took life to the extreme and won in the end. Not only is this book exciting, but it also teaches the reader a lesson about life, -don't let serious things go; take careful action and it will go your way in the end. There are many surprises, exciting conflicts, twists, and obstacles in Tune In Anytime; there is no way anyone could possibly put it down. A reader who is going through tough times at home or knows someone who is having problems similar to Sophie's, I strongly recommend this book to you!
   
   Jessie W.
   Des Plaines, Illinois



3. Sophie is so mad because her dad is with a woman named Persia which is sophie's sister Maley's age. Not to mentio he is still married to mom. Sophie's dad doesn't care, and her mom acts really weird. Sophie thimks that since her dad wants a divorce the he doesn't love her mom anymore. Sophie then thinks that maybe she will never be loved or be able to love again. Eerything leads up to a party that her mom is throwing with a bunch of her friends. While at the part all of her anger builds up and she decides to bulldoze her husbands house. At the end her husband is very upset but sophie and her mom have a sense of relief, and no longer does her mom act weird.



4. Sophie's life has suddenly turned into a soap opera. Her mother has always been sort of strange, getting interested in odd things. Now she seems to think there is some special meaning in the partial Stonhenge erected in her neighbor's yard. She wants to finish the stone circle and dance around it in the dark. Sophie's father has decided he has had enough, and he is planning to divorce Sophie's mother and marry the former college roommate of Sophie's sister. He will then sell their beautiful home and find a small apartment for Sophie and her mother to live in while he travels the world with his new young wife.
   
   No one seems to think that there is any reason for Sophie to be as upset as she is. She hates her father for being insensitive and not listening at all to her concerns. He doesn't even seem to notice she exists anymore. She is angry at her mother for not fighting back, for pretending everything is fine and living in her own little world. She is angry at her sister for being away at college and being so self-centered that she won't come home to try to help.
   
   So Sophie comes up with a plan. She will bulldoze her house. That way her father will have no money to travel the world and his new fiance will leave him. And they will all live happily ever after. But will her neighbor, her quiet and sensitive classmate Ted whose family owns gravel pits and several bulldozers, help her with her plan? Or will he be able to talk her out of it?
   
   I thought the character of Ted was great, and I loved his family and his relationship with them. I also liked how his parents dealt with Sophie and her mom. I hated Sophie's parents, though. Her father was a horrible person and I wanted Sophie to hate him completely. Her mother was far too concerned about herself when she should have been concerned about her daughter. Their marriage wasn't worth saving.



5. What a purely delightful read this book is! "Tune In Anytime" is set up like a soap opera with each new episode a continuation of the lives of the Olivette and Larkman families. A family drama, the book is quite the deviation for Caroline B. Cooney, a suspense genre writer.
   
   Poor Sophie Olivette is the still point amidst the self-centered members of her family: Daniel, 49, who plans to divorce his mate, then remarry a young model; Edith, the old wife, a long-time self-seeker; Marley, older daughter, feisty college student; and Sophie, a sensible high school student longing for her family to remain intact.
   
   At the beginning of each chapter an italicized script introduces a typical soap opera plot, then adapts it to the Olivette family. The chapter follows the thread but in most unusual ways. First, the writing is pure magic. I will reread this book just to recapture the lovely enchantment of Cooney's words. Second, the characters never react to events in expected ways. There is an aura of mystery and other worldliness to them. Could it be caused by the stone circle on the Larkman property, where Edith plans a solstice party to precede the New Year's Eve wedding of her soon-to-be ex-husband. There's a bulldozer involved.
   
   One of the best parts of the book is the slowly evolving romance between Sophie Olivette and Ted Larkman, high school student and third-generation gravel pit operator. His parents are doubly involved: in the plot and in the magic. Sound confusing? The novel is open-ended, but how the relationship turns out is as obvious as fairy dust.
   
   Think of the best of Woody Allen, then you have a sense of the strange evolving in this modern day fairy tale. Very highly recommended!

No comments about Pl/I: Structured Programming and Problem Solving.

No comments about Short Course in Pl/1 and Pl/C (West Series in Data Processing and Information Systems).

No comments about INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTERS; WITH EMPHASIS ON THE SYSTEM/360, FORTRAN IV, AND PL/1.

No comments about Foundations of Mathematics and other Logical Essays (International Library of Philosophy).