Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

Not accurate at best.
My hiking buddy has taken this book along on several of the hikes that we have done.More than once, we have come to an intersection where the book says to go straight but it's a T-intersection and we can only go right or left. And true to Murphy's law, the book will never have a map of that section to help you out.Also, a few of the hikes where she said was a "slight hill climb" turn out to be monstrously strenuous. While some other parts of hikes that she said were difficult were terribly easy.I've long since doubted that she has done these hikes herself because no one who's actually been out on these trails can describe them that inaccurately.There are better books out there, stay away from this one.

Heavy
A nice sampling of hikes but not enough variety to warrant all the pages.This isn't a book I can take along in my pack so I've had to photocopy pages which is a little inconvenient. This is more a book for beginning hikers. The hike selections weren't chanllenging enough for me. ... Read more

Book Description
Dr. Linda Hamilton's ground breaking book, The Person Behind the Mask: A Guide to Performing Arts Psychology, takes the reader on a vivid journey of the performer's private world, where personal insecurity often wages an unsuccessful battle against the stresses of the profession-whether these are unrealistic weight requirements, debilitating injuries, or stage fright. Intended for performers, teachers, and health-care workers, this is a book that describes the psychological problems of the stage, with a focus on education and prevention. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Scott Hamilton Fireworks On Ice
This is a good basic bio of Scott Hamilton and I think it's a must read for Scott Hamilton fans of all age.There really is nothing new here, however you have to cull this information from various sources and it's nice to be able to read about the basics of this extraordinary athlete in one this one well written book.It's brief--as a book for youth should be and yet it covers the details of Scott's life very well.

There are a couple of inaccuracies I found - Scott debuted his new costume design in 1983, not 84--and he never landed a triple lutz/triple toe combination as stated-but nothing major.

The writing style is appropriate for youth without being overly simple.There are lots of good quality colorful pictures of Hamilton both as a child and as an amateur and pro.

This is a good book for young people, even if they aren't big fans of skating because Scott Hamilton is a wonderful role model for young people and this book well details the adversities he overcame in a positive way, w ... Read more

Amazon.com
April Smith's first novel, North of Montana, garnered good reviews and marked her as a writer worth watching. In her second thriller, Be the One, she amply fulfills that promise. Cassidy Sanderson is a woman in a man's world: the only female scout in major-league baseball, Cassidy's not only a former star with a women's professional team but also the daughter of a legendary player and the sister of a promising pitcher who died too young. Baseball isn't just in Cassidy's blood, it's her whole life, and even the daily effort of constantly having to prove herself to her bosses in the L.A. Dodgers head office can't wear out her passion for the game.

She's got a great double play going when she goes to the Dominican Republic and finds both a promising young player, Alberto Cruz, and a powerful, sexy American financier, Joe Galinis, who picks her up when the car carrying her and Cruz breaks down. But once she gets Alberto to training camp, the trouble that's followed her all the way from the Caribbean explodes in blackmail, extortion, and violence, with a mysterious vodou twist:

The thing appears to be a Barbancourt rum bottle, you can see the lettering underneath the red cloth in which it has been tightly wrapped. Lashed to the neck with hundreds of turns of black thread are two pairs of scissors, open wide. Dangling off the bottom on multicolored strings is a bizarre fringe of razor blades that flash like silver teeth.

Her partner says, "What is it? Some kind of punk thing?"

"Gang thing?"

Cassidy holds it very carefully. It spooks her in a deeply primitive way. Unlike the whimsical gourd with the belly-button mirror on her mantel, this bizarre construction is definitely broadcasting on an evil wavelength: the shape of the bottle like a human body.

Smith's characters are sharply drawn, and she's firmly in command of her milieu: the day-to-day life of a baseball scout is brilliantly explicated, the pacing is expert, and the back-stories are well told in flashback. Cassidy is a fascinating woman--hard-working, hard-drinking, and wholly human and vulnerable. Even if you're not a baseball fan, you'll root for her to win. --Jane Adams Book Description
From the author of North of Montana ("The writing has the taut, perfect tone of a well-tuned string"--Scott Turow), a spellbinding new thriller about ambition taken to unexpected, and deadly, extremes.

Cassidy Sanderson is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers--the only female scout in the major leagues. Hard-living and hard-drinking, a gifted athlete herself, she takes pride in successfully competing in a male world. But recently she has been losing prospects on the sign, and her job security is teetering on the edge. When she gets a tip from a close friend and fellow scout about Alberto Cruz, a young phenom in the Dominican Republic, she impulsively catches a flight to Santo Domingo--even though it is out of her territory and she will undoubtedly incur her boss's wrath. If Alberto Cruz is as good as she's been told, the trip will be worth the risk.

The risk starts quickly. Not only has Cruz "got it all--the heart, the guts, the aptitude," he may also have "a bad spirit on him." And he's not the only man Cassidy meets on the island who might change her life for good or ill. The other is Joe Galinis, a powerful financier and real estate developer, "one of the most provocative men she has ever met." When Cassidy returns to Los Angeles, she finds herself entangled in a blackmail scheme laced with otherworldly vodou and real-life violence: a tightening triangle of suspicion and deception that leads her to the back rooms (and backstabbing) of high-stakes sports and finance--where she is about to discover that there is a thin line between a competitor and a killer.

Once again, April Smith gives us a novel of nonstop suspense--large in scope, emotionally rich, and built around a central character of striking originality and substance. It is an electrifying read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Not The One for Me
This book is one long annoying read.The tense, for one thing.Instead of, "she said, she saw" etc. it's (sometimes) written in present tense which is incredibly irritating.And the flashbacks are way, way, way overdone!Where are the editors for this kind of book?The tone is rambling, the characters shallow and unrealistic, and I really didn't care what happened to any one of them.Ugh.Don't bother.

Better than I thought I would be
I purchased this book after reading several reviews and wasn't sure how it would measure up to North of Montana, which I thoroughly enjoyed.I have to admit I enjoyed it alot more than I thought I might.Originally, I was a little skeptical about the story line, and there were a few far reaches with some of the characters (Galinis was a little hard to believe and to get a feel for)but overall it had a good pace and keep my attention with great baseball insight and several well written characters.I would recommend this to other fans of April Smith.

Baseball thriller, heroine with attitude
Right now I'm a bit mad at April Smith. I started the book a few days ago, then stayed up until 3:30 in the morning to finish it. So this is definitely a page-turner. As a baseball fan, I enjoyed the descriptions of a scouting meeting and of spring training. The author obviously works hard at producing well-crafted prose; once in a while she reaches too far and produces an unintentional oxymoron. Example: when someone is massaging Cassidy's shoulders, they are like granite; she's been working under the kind of pressure that would liquefy stone. As other reviewers have mentioned, there are a couple of loose ends in the narrative (can anyone tell me how Nora knew where to find her father?). Back to Cassidy: if you don't like a heroine with an attitude, who is so driven that she habitually operates way out of bounds, and who has a drinking problem, then you won't like an April Smith book; both Cassidy and Ana, the heroine of North to Montana, April Smith's previous book, fit the description. Plus they are NOT into housekeeping and have pretty bad luck at relationships. Having said that, I'll confess that Cassidy kept coming in and out of focus for me. She seemed to be less sharply drawn than Ana. But even in those patches where Cassidy seems like a shadow, the plot kept me riveted. Do you like baseball? Like thrillers? Read it.

what a let down
I really LOVED her first book and couldn't wait for this one andit was a long wait - and not worth the time or money.This was poorly written with unpleasant and very unreal characters.

The main character - Cassidy was so childish it was hard tobelieve she was actually in her 30's....what a twit. No wonder she gets no respect.There were lots of loose ends and no real development of characters or plot - which was easily figured out. It is hard to imagine that the same woman wrote both books.

Be The One is a terrific book
I finished April Smith's Be The One last night and have to rate it a 10 of 10. On my scale that means the author has written a thought provoking book that I will want to read again and that has affected me deeply. This book is a story about a female baseball scout, but so much more. April Smith takes us deep into the world of baseball, the hopes and dreams of young prospects from the Domincan Republic, their struggles to make the majors against the odds, showing the poverty and lifestyle that is so very different. She weaves a tale ripe with suspense and danger and illustrates the political hierarchy and challenges of working in a competitive environment where only the best succeed, and at what cost. Cassidy Sanderson has seen tragedy strike her family and she is an amazing character with a depth not often explored and with choices to make, that, as a reader, you are compelled to watch, to wonder and to hope.April Smith spent some time in the DR researching this book. She mentions in the acknowledgements that it was five years in the making and the many facets of research she undertook. A book of this stature shows what you get when the research is meticulous and careful and in this case we get magnificent results. Some authors have a lot of research and the book has no heart. Some books have heart and the flawed research diminishes the results. Sometimes, rarely, they both come together as with Be The One. The ending, oh the ending. very powerful stuff. Highly recommend. ... Read more

Book Description
Text and graphic illustration of the American Horse Shows Assoc. 1999 dressage Training Level Tests 1,2,3,4 and 1996 US Dressage Federation dressage Introductory Level Tests 1,2. Printed on heavy paper and plastic laminated for outdoor use. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great series helps you learn those tests!
This nice, big book with wipe-clean coated pages is great to have around the home or barn. You can trace out the tests with a grease pencil or crayon (to help you learn), or stash the book in your tack trunk, and it stays nice and new. Horses can bite, stomp or lick it and it won't tear.

The diagrams are big and nicely drawn step by step. Helpful, durable books and I believe the whole series is avaialable all the way up to Grand Prix. Good luck! ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Amazon.com
On a beautiful night in a second-tier American city, a beautiful astrophysicist with the clichéd everything to live for shoots herself dead with a .22. Tough-talking detective Mike Hoolihan, quickly summoned to the scene, has witnessed every sort of victim: "Jumpers, stumpers, dumpers, dunkers, bleeders, floaters, poppers, bursters." But this case is different. Mike has known the young woman for years--she's the daughter, it turns out, of Mike's mentor, Colonel Tom Rockwell. And the colonel is desperate to find a perp, despite massive evidence to the contrary.

In Night Train, Martin Amis has fixed his sights on the American female--with a difference. Mike is in fact a woman--a hulking, chain-smoking, deep-voiced alcoholic who comes complete with a squalid family background and a none-too-happy foreground. She even lives in a building next to the proverbial night train and can't survive without her tape with eight different versions of the R & B "hymn to the low rent."

Did this novel begin as narrative flexing, yet another test the hypertalented author--and number-one Elmore Leonard fan--wanted to pose to himself? If so, he has passed with flying colors. True, Mike's search occasionally pushes her up against pulp pathos, but mostly the genre keeps Amis true. "Police are pretty blasé about ballistics. Remember the Kennedy assassination and 'the magic bullet'? We know that every bullet is a magic bullet. Particularly the .22 roundnose. When a bullet enters a human being, it has hysterics. As if it knows it shouldn't be there."

Mike spends her time weighing the evidence, wishing it would point to murder, and letting us in on some current police realities. Whatever television tells us, in real life (not to mention postmodern crime fiction), there's no neat solution. Even that old standard, the good cop-bad cop approach, no longer works: "It's not just that Joe Perp is on to it, having seen good cop-bad cop a million times on reruns of Hawaii Five-O. The only time bad cop was any good was in the old days, when he used to come into the interrogation room every ten minutes and smash your suspect over the head with the yellow pages." With such discourses, Amis is stretching the rubber band of his book's realism. But in the end, all his fancy footwork doesn't stop us from admiring and pitying his heroine, and hoping she won't board the ultimate night train: suicide.Book Description
From the bestselling author of London Fields,The Information and Heavy Water comes this stylistically brilliant story. As riveting as the best of Elmore Leonard, Night Train is a gritty, totally captivating mystery about a female homicide detective and the one case that got under her skin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (88)

Was This an Experiment?
My first Amis book was "The Moronic Inferno," which fairly well roasted, if not scorched, a few American literary heroes, such as Mailer and Capote.Amis has published mainly fiction since then, and I have to say that "Night Train" was only my second Amis book, and my first novel.

A tiny bit of research based on street names will convince you that the setting is Seattle, Washington (plus, Mike's quick side trip to Vancouver to meet with Phyllida).Not mentioning the city the novel is set in is a curiosity akin to the opening line, "I am a police."Narrator Mike tells us that this is how all of her crime-fighting colleagues speak -- but we know that no one speaks that way (this is what made me think at first that this was set in a distant future where some changes in the language had made "I am a police" common usage).

As I read this, I had somewhat the same feeling as when I read Franz Kafka's "Amerika."Kafka had never been to America, and the America he described was clearly unrecognizable as America.In "Night Train," we find "Mike" Hoolahan speaking in Britishisms that I doubt a cop in Seattle, even one born in Vancouver, would use -- such as "shift" rather than "move," and so on.

"Mike," herself, strikes the reader as something of an oddity, as I'm sure Amis intended.The name, of course, emphasizes masculinity, but we're never quite sure of it.She never really convinces us of her femininity, either.Her sexual impulses are there, but they are truncated, and the reader knows she is not going to indulge them -- largely because she is such an artifact, a kind of put-together person, a male part here, a female part there, a "police" part here.Amis gets her to walk, but her stride is Frankensteinian and graceless.

Amis uses some interesting devices, especially with dialog, and I think they work.There are two major failings in the book, in my view.First, there is in the end no compelling reason for "Mike" to be female.It's fine that she is, and that creates certain psychological overtones, but ultimately her being female is not necessary to the story. Naming her "Mike," I think, has to be a clue that we do not have a either a man or a woman here, but a kind of simulacrum of the author (freely speaking British English, not American).Second, and perhaps fatally, the life and death of Jennifer is presented in such a perfunctory manner, and in the end she becomes little more than a symbol for the other characters' failings.We are apparently supposed to believe in her superiority and to be shamed by her suicide, which is presented as an act of world-weariness -- she is in despair because she is such a great intellect trapped in dank Seattle with friends, bosses, lovers, fathers, and acquaintances who just can't live up to her level.The realization of her superiority drives the hero(ine), "Mike," to the edge, as well.

Jennifer's portentous insight into the universe, and her consequent suicide (a rather odd act of hostility, insofar as it was elaborately disguised) is given to us as a sort of tag-on to the novel, rather than as an integral insight -- because it is not prepared for in the narrative. Jennifer is, at first, a nice, happy, carefree astrophysicist everyone loves and who loves everyone; and then we "learn" (but are not shown) that she was actually a neurotic snob with passive-aggressive personality dysfunction.Jennifer is not portrayed in retrospect as any more alive than the naked corpse sprawled on a chair at the beginning of the novel.

Difficult but Worthy
Our book club's novel for February was Night Train, by Martin Amis, which we'd selected from a series of proposed books that our members described as "quirky" or "out of the ordinary."We picked Night Train not only because of the author's reputation but also because of its brevity (175 pages).

Our discussion started with a fairly lengthy of what exactly genre fiction is.Night Train has all the elements of a traditional hard-boiled mystery: a hard-edged, bitter, cynical female cop who has been done dirt by the world, and who is barely holding on to her few remaining relationships.It also has what one would consider a traditional plot--the narrator's ("Mike" Hoolihan) mentor's daughter has committed suicide, but no one can accept this--and Mike is dispatched to find out what really happened.And, finally, the book is told in what could be considered the common sort of criminal/underworld/police patois that we have seen in noir fiction for decades (and which led some of us to wonder if people ever really talk(ed) like this, or if this is a hyperstylized made-up language that is "real" only in the world of fiction).

So why, then, does the book feel so surreal, and so non-standard?The book takes place in an unnamed American city with a reputation for being tough, but the language seems more British than American, beginning with the opening line "I am a police."Such an opening line almost sets up the expectation that you're going to be in a world you don't recognize or know much about--and that does indeed turn out to be the case.While the investigation does proceed on a more-or-less understandable, the book's final "reveal" is disturbing and completely unexpected (I can't say more without spoilers, but anyone who has read this book will know what I mean).

And it was in the ending that we had our most intense discussion, with the members pretty evenly divided.Some felt that reading the book had been an off-kilter experience for them throughout, as if they were caught in a strange alternate reality somewhere between fiction and real life.Others felt that the book and the ending were all the more satisfying because they are more "realistic" in terms of what life is really like--inconsistent characters, a series of events more than a "plotline" created and maintained by an author/narrator, and a conclusion that doesn't fit anyone's expectations of how a crime novel should end.

All in all, while we were divided on how much we "liked" the book, we all agreed that it was a singularly worthy read--a book, unlike so many mysteries, that can sustain long bouts of discussion.What I personally found so interesting about the discussion was that I was able to see all points of view.I understood why some people felt so passionately about the book's ground-breaking aspects, and I also understood why some people felt so frustrated (even robbed) by it.This is certainly an important book, and I think it's worth a read if you can handle intense discussions of suicide, alcoholism, and many other unpleasant things about life.

"That ticket costs you everything you have..."
44-year-old female detective and recovering alcoholic, "Mike" Hoolihan, takes on the job of investigating the apparent suicide of Jennifer Rockwell, the only daughter of police brass, Colonel Tom. Tom is a powerful father figure for Mike: he saved her life by getting her off the booze. Now he wants her to explain what happened to his daughter. Jennifer had everything anybody wants: beauty, wit, health and a stimulating career. So the discovery in her orderly apartment of her naked body with three shots to the head strikes Hoolihan not just as a shock, but as an endlessly troubling mystery. As she attempts to solve it, Amis takes us down the well-worn paths of the traditional detective story: the crime scene, the autopsy, the interviews with Jennifer's doctor, lover and colleagues, mostly set in offices, bars and smoky police cells. The resolution is original while still remaining reasonably faithful to classic crime conventions. As Borges once observed, the American detective story is generally a disappointment precisely because its solutions don't satisfy the curiosity the plot has stirred. But Amis, to my mind, nails it. The ending is incredibly bleak and quite unexpected, though some readers will undoubtedly find it ambiguous... So much of the criticism of this startling little novel misses the mark by holding it to a standard it doesn't attempt to meet. The one thing we can be sure Amis is not doing here is attempting a conventional noirish crime novel. Rather, he borrows the conventions of one genre and uses them for something else: in this case, he takes the "detective story" as the narrative architecture for an existential drama, much like Paul Auster did in "The New York Trilogy". As "a police", Mike needs to be interested in the what and the how, and less in the why. But as Amis shows, the why is everything. The why is our central dilemma. I read "Night Train" in one sitting and enjoyed it immensely. I suspect the hatred it inspires has more to do with the average crime buff's disappointed expectations and/or the corrosive and now-automatic distaste many critics have for Martin Amis, and less to do with the book itself. It's good. They don't call him Smarty Anus for nothing.

not the greatest thing
Well when i got this book i thought that there was going to be more action in it. But it is just a story about a girl who did suicide (i am not done with it yet). This book also has to many swears in it, no one talks like that, only teens do (that are immature). I can't wait to be done with this book.

Misunderstood book
Much of the criticism of Night Train vents spleen at the fact that it isn't a Chandler, or a Leonard or any standard cop novel.

No, Amis doesn't do straightforward novels. He dispenses with standard form, he writes about how things are. Endings don't come neatly packaged, nicely resolved. Most things in life are difficult, messy, loose stranded. So it is with the case of Jennifer Rockwell - the seemingly perfect woman: beautiful, from a loving family, tender partner. Found dead in her armchair having fired three shots in her mouth. Suicide, with no explanation. Amis may mock the standard form of detective drama, but he certainly doesn't mock suicide. Prepare to have your preconceptions on people who die by their own hand shaken up in this curious novel.

Then there are those who say that Amis gets his Americanisms wrong. Night Train is set in a nameless, second tier American city, evidently one with mean streets and plenty of homicide (I'm thinking Amis had something like Atlanta in mind, following from some investigative journalism he undertook on homicides there in the 1980s). The first line 'I am a police' is apparently not common parlance in the states, which is admittedly an inauspicious start, but I found that much of the dialogue was sharp enough, jazzy enough and witty enough to create a vivid picture of the hard boiled underbelly of American urban life.

That great granddaddy of literature John Updike shuffled in on his zimmer frame in a notorious review of this book. 'Apparently young people these days are talking about post humanism' he informs us. Updike doesn't see how a hard boiled piece of detective fiction can work without a coherent plot. And what does Updike know about tough crime fiction anyway? His rogues are viewed like the girl strolling through Baltimore at the start of the musical Hairspray. Everything is just wonderful in his pretty drawn world, even the bums on their bar room stools wave kids on their way to school. No, when it comes to the world of crime, Amis knows the score, the lingua franca, the terrain.

But even given the errors, what choice did Amis have? In Britain, the crime scene simply doesn't have the savage, underworld aura of the American scene. Think of our cop dramas on this side of the Atlantic - Inspector Morse, Midsomer Murders, Hetty Wainthrop Investigates - solve a murder in a sleepy village then have a nice cup of tea. Even our investigators don't have the tough talking effect that US guys do. Middle aged men in drip dry rayon with sweaty armpits poring over forensics? I don't think so.

So it has to be set in the US. Where a cop like Mike Hoolihan (female) can be operate. A sort of Martin Amis in drag. Recovering alcoholic, so beaten down by life it's a wonder she has any emotional sinews left.

So whatever Updike and the rest think, this is a well worked and important piece of fiction. ... Read more

Book Description
"The Stones Cry Out is startlingly good as literature. It is also an important addition to a thin historical record. . . . Her account of the revolutionary rhetoric, set against the reality of what the revolutionaries were actually doing, is as macabre as any of the descriptions of bodies."--The Wall Street Journal

"This is a powerful and compelling story of terror, struggle and death sprinkled with moments of tenderness, written by a woman who writes not of politics but only of what she experienced."--New York Times Book Review

In 1975, Molyda Szymusiak (her adoptive name), the daughter of a high Cambodian official, was twelve years old and leading a relatively peaceful life in Phnom Penh. Suddenly, on April 17, Khmer Rouge radicals seized the capital and drove all its inhabitants into the countryside. The chaos that followed has been widely publicized, most notably in the movie The Killing Fields. Murderous brutality coupled with raging famine caused the death of more than two million people, nearly a third of the population. This powerful memoir documents the horror Cambodians experienced in daily life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

the most gut-wrenching historical account I've ever read
There are no words adequate to convey the effect this book had on me when I read it in 1986.It haunted me for years.I wanted everyone I knew to read it.

Just several years ago I met a woman whose entire family - her husband and all her children - died under the Khmer Rouge monsters.

Amazingly, after the stories Miss Szymusiak recounts: of the young girl who was killed for being too pretty, of those murdered for daring to exhibit signs of affection for one another, and of unspeakable tortures inflicted upon absolutely helpless and innocent people of all ages, the chapter which really drained my blood was the one detailing her witnessing the beginning of the purge.The author notes the young Communist cadres being themselves called in for interrogation and torture and disappearing one by one.

This is a chilling account of the darkest period in 20th Century history.

Treated worse than dogs
You need a strong stomach to read the grueling ordeal of a 12 year old girl in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime.
The latter and his cronies turned a whole country into a concentration camp guided by the iron fist of a centrally planned economy which was based on rice production quotas.
Starvation and killing of whole families including babies were part of normal daily life. The author herself lost nearly all her family.
The slogan was 'be deaf and dump if you want to survive'.

Exceptionally, this book also relates the disturbing facts which happened in a Red Khmer camp in Thailand until one year after Pol Pot's defeat by the Vietnamese.

Molyda Szymusiak tells only the facts. She doesn't explain the overall picture of Pol Pot's regime, politically, socially, economically or internationally.
Therefore I highly recommend the eminent works of David Chandler as well as Philip Short's magisterial biography of Pol Pot (Saloth Sar).

This book shows painfully the disastrous consequences of a power grasp by ideological fanatics who created a one party state bureaucracy which wielded total uncontrolled power over the population.
This regime was a terrible shame for the left.

A very disturbing read.

Chilling and moving
My heart sank lower and lower with each successive chapter. This is certainly not a book one can read while couching comfortably on a sofa. If you are familiar with Cambodian history of the Khmer Rouge regime, this book is indeed a chilling read. But at the same time, one can't help feeling admiration for the author's fortitide in the face of unimaginable hardship and horror.

A child's account of her family's struggle to survive.
One of the earliest (1986) accounts from the survivors of the Pol Pot regime, "The Stones Cry Out" seems to have set the style and standard for another more recent child's-eye perspective on the same era,"When Broken Glass Floats".The minute details of everyday life,not abstract poltical assessments, form the basis for our childhoodmemories.The author's account carries an unvarnished realism which drawsthe reader into her film-like image of daily life under threat ofstarvation and execution.This is probably as close as a reader can cometo the truth of events in Cambodia during 1975-79.Oral histories such as"The Stones Cry Out" are perhaps the best way for survivors ofhuman rights abuses to indict the perpetrators.Sadly, tribunals driven byinternational politics are unlikely to have the same impact as the simpletestimony of a victimized child.Highly recommended reading for all thosewith an interest in human rights, Cambodia, and Southeast Asian culture.

A sobering look at man's inhumanity to man.
Actualy I would rate this 4 and 1/2 stars.

Having read"First they killed my father" by Loung Ung It would be difficult for me to review this book with out comparing it to Loung Ung's memoir.

Both areessentially the same story, a young upper middle class girl living in PhnomPhen in april of 1975 when thier life, family and happiness are torn fromthem by the khmer rouge.

Many of thier experinces are similar as youmight expect (long hours in forced labor, family deaths, witnessing murderect..) but each has a unique story of thier own.

The writing styles alsovary greatly and this is where Loung's"First they killed my Fatheris the better" book. Molyda tells her story in a very straight fowardmanner. Her discriptions of murder, torture and rotting corpses are alomostclinical in tone as if she is afaid to visit or express her real feelingsat the time (and who could realy blame her)we are giving only hints abouther family and life before April 17th 1975 (to be fair this may be in partto spare distant family members still in Cambodia from retalation)

InLoung's book however we are treated to two light hearted chaptersdiscribing her life in Phnom Pehn before April 17th 1975 this gives thereader a chance to feel they realy know her, her brother's, sisters andparents thier strengths and weakness'.

Loung's memoir is far moreemotional in tone and feeling leaving the reader almost gasping for air atpoints.

For those overly squimish that makes "The Stones CryOut" the better of the two books. It is also the better of the twobooks if your sole interest is the surrounding history of the killingfields.

But for those just wishing to read a great emotional book"first They killed My father" is the better choice but I wouldhighly recomend both to all. ... Read more

Amazon.com
After 18 months of dating, hemming, hawing, begging, badgering, and threatening--as well as performing "really sincere fellatio"--the heroine of Otherwise Engaged has finally finagled an engagement ring. Eve seems confident that Michael, "the epitome of a Nice Jewish Man," is the person she wants to spend her life with. Yet she nearly kills herself soon after the celebratory dinner, staring at her newly acquired rock while speeding along a San Francisco freeway. And she may kill Michael, too, but not accidentally: "Michael leaves his socks on the floor when he takes off his shoes after work. This used to be fine. But now a sock on the floor isn't just a sock on the floor. It's a sock on the floor for the rest of my life."

Suzanne Finnamore's comic novel chronicles the happy couple's year-long engagement--which, to judge from Eve's Valium intake, is about 11 months too long. Eve and Michael bicker over every last detail: whether to hire a professional photographer or one of Michael's advertising-director buddies; which one of them wastes more money; who used up the last can of chicken stock and didn't add it to the shopping list. At 36, Eve throws more tantrums than the average toddler, and Michael's moodiness and problems with hisex-wifecertainly don't help. The result is one drama-queen dilemma after another, none of them much ameliorated by Eve's slapstick sessions with "a seventy-year-old Marin County prominent Jungian."

Eve's troubles are primarily self-induced, of course, and the lush life she leads as a lavishly compensated advertising copywriter makes it hard to regard her as a tragic figure. Still, Otherwise Engaged is worth a quick read by any anxious bride-to-be who's delaying that inevitable appointment with Martha Stewart's premarital to-do checklist. --Erica JorgensenBook Description
For every woman who has ever dreamed of getting married or survived the pre-wedding hell of planning the big day; for every man who has ever watched in horror as the woman he loves mutates into a bride-to-be--a wickedly funny first novel about the excruciating ritual otherwise known as modern marriage.

Michael has finally asked Eve to marry him. It is tempting to believe that everything is going according to plan. But from her first anxiety-producing encounter with Modern Bride magazine to setting a date ("My impression is that if you don't set a date, they stone you"), finding a dress, ordering, and the unrelenting chaos of life in the world beyond the wedding, from the fights and resentment to the disconcerting realization that lately when she looks at her fiancé she hears the striking of a Chinese gong and the words FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE echoing through her head, Eve discovers that planning a wedding is fraught with unexpected perils, and it's a long walk to the altar.

Otherwise Engaged is a wry, deliciously caustic ride through the outsized rituals of an American wedding, and a hilarious portrait of what happens to an otherwise rational, intelligent woman when she begins to plan one.


Reader Bio:

Linda Hamilton's many film appearances include Dante's Peak, American Pie, andThe Terminator. She was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for her starring role in the television series Beauty and the Beast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (285)

Laugh Out Loud Funny
Okay, you don't even have to be engaged or in a relationship for that matter to enjoy this book. I found myself laughing out loud at certain parts and could not wait to lend it to my girlfriends. They all loved it too, by the way!

A waste of time
This book gave me a headache.It jumps around and the thoughts the author conveys are incomplete and at times make no sense.I kept reading because of all the good reviews and hoped it would get better.In the end it was a huge let down.

They killed trees for THIS?
What a disastrously bad and unfunny novel.The self-involved main character is pathetic and whiny, the "plot" is see-through and cliched, and the writing style is far below what can be found on any mediocre blog.

When people criticize chick lit, this is exactly the kind of book they're talking about.It's shallow to such a shocking degree than when it tries to take itself seriously, or stretches for a literary flourish, it's absolutely cringe-worthy.I find it hard to believe the people who've praised it here actually read the same book.

This was given to me by an acquaintance shortly after my engagement.She said she didn't really like it but thought it would be "more my kind of thing."Obviously not a person who knows me well.Thankfully, it doesn't appear the author is terribly prolific, so readers don't need to worry about trying to stumble through page after page of show-offy navel-gazing.

I wouldn't say it's one of the worst books I've read, but it's certainly one of the most useless.

favorite book
i just started reading it again for the second time- i forgot how funny it was!very clever, origional humor.

Witty and Sarcastic
I loved this book!It was filled with witt and sarcasm.I am so disappointed to see all the reviews that are not based on the book but rather the reviewer's personal life and views on marriage and engagement.One of the best parts of the book is the over-the-top main character.She's vibrant, funny, witty, and intelligent not your typical "bride" character: A 20 something princess bride who is rescued by a prince and lives happily ever after.
I've lent this book to so many people that it is falling apart...at the seams. ... Read more

Book Description
In her touching introduction to this collection, Britain's beloved children's author E. Nesbit shares with us her very personal inspiration for The Children's Shakespeare. As a writer, she understood that the stories are the least part of Shakespeare, but as a mother she also understood the need for simplicity. Her daughters were far too young to handle such complex language, yet certainly they must be capable of appreciating, indeed enjoying, the stories hidden within.

Envisioning this simplified introduction to works such as The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Taming of the Shrew-eleven plays in all-E. Nesbit set out to make them more accessible to young readers without sacrificing any essential elements. For if the stories were stripped of their wit and humor, of their emotion, the children would be no more entertained by them than by the indecipherable originals.

In the end, under E. Nesbit's gifted pen, these stories emerged with all the charm and grace of the very best fairy tales. Written in thoroughly modern English and each no more than ten pages in length, the eleven plays featured in this volume afford children the opportunity to discover for themselves the magic of Shakespeare. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Shakespeare for kids fun for any age
This book is loads of fun! I bought it for my third grader, who is taking a field trip to see "Romeo and Juliet." I wanted him to have some familiarity with the storyline so he wouldn't be yawning cluelessly by the end of Act I. He loved it so much he wanted to discuss it! Even my husband who hates to read the stuff enjoyed it.
In short, the book is well done. It shortens the plays into a very long story-summary without the dramatic language that can be somewhat of a distraction. We're not talking Cliff's Notes here folks.This is just a handful of pages per play written on a level anyone can understand and enjoy. The book is not long so it's not intimidating. (Have you seen any books containing Shakespeare's complete works, lately? Mine could be used for a doorstop! It's huge!)
We paired this book with the comedy of "The Reduced Shakespeare Company's" version of Romeo and Juliet. My son is actually looking forward to the trip!

Fantastic introduction to Shakespeare for younger children
I read and reread this book as a youth. The stories read much like classic fairy tales with tragedy, irony, and moral lessons. The writing is very accessible and encouraged me to seek out the full length "stories" in their original (play script) form once I was old enough (6th/7th grade) to really read them.

For a child who has a love of literature, these retellings of the great plays may start a life-long interest in Shakespeare's art (as they did for me).

Lorenzo Schiavo and Felipe Gravier
Romeo and Juliet

Felipe Gravier and Lorenzo Schiavo review:

We think that Romeo and Juliet tells the story of two star-crossed lovers whose families are in a terrible fight which prevents them from coming together. How far the couple will go to be together becomes the focus of the story. Of his richest poetry. The opening and closing choruses are some of his most outstanding work. Romeo's It is a brilliant love story but not much more. It still possesses however some wooing of Juliet is fabulously written. The Friar gets the best lines. Mercutio is one the best friends of Romeo. It is not as good as Shakespeare has written but it's still a fabulous book and up there with his best work. One part of the play we didn't like was that for the tow families get arrange there two kids had to die.
The English language wasn't finally finished so Shakespeare had the liberty to create words and play with the language, as he liked. That's why It was so difficult to understand what each character wanted to express so the teacher had to explain us each of that words and teach us all the words in that age and told us which were the words in the English of today.

Interesting Storys
This book provides lots of Shakespeare's Storys like "A Midsummer's Night Dream" and "Hamlet" with a children's fairy tale twist. The storys are the same as Shakespeare's, but easier for children to understand.My favorite story was Hamlet because I had just seen the play.A while after we read Children's Shakespeare and it helped me to understandHamlet better.

Shakespeare is for children too!
Shakespeare is for kids and adults in E. Nesbit's creative mind.I always liked fairy tales, but I couldn't read Shakespeare very well. In Children's Shakespeare E. Nesbit turned his work into fairy tales without changing thestory and morals. This book is not much like Nesbit's other books becauseit was written by Shakespeare, but I bet there are somesimularities.

This book was a overall well writen book and I beleive E.Nesbit put a lot of hard work into her books in her life-time. I'm sure ifshe were alive now she would still be writing good books to this day. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Dance Magazine, published by Thomson Gale on May 1, 2007. The length of the article is 848 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: Advice for dancers: former New York City Ballet dancer Linda Hamilton, Ph.D., is a psychologist, a wellness consultant for NYCB, and the author of Advice for Dancers (Jossey-Bass). She has offered advice to Dance Magazine readers since 1992.(Column)
Author: Linda Hamilton
Publication: Dance Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 81Issue: 5Page: 32(1)

Article Type: Column

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
Text and graphic illustration of the current Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) dressage tests for Prix St-Georges, Intermediate I, Intermediate II, Grand Prix, and Grand Prix Special. ... Read more

Book Description
Text and graphic illustration of the current Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) dressage tests for Prix St-Georges, Intermediate I (new in 2002), Intermediate II, Grand Prix (new in 2002) and Grand Prix Special (revised in 2002). ... Read more

Book Description
Text and graphic illustration of the American Horse Shows Assoc. 1999 dressage Fourth Level Tests 1,2,3. Printed on heavy paper and plastic laminated for outdoor use. ... Read more

Book Description
Text and graphic illustration of the American Horse Shows Assoc. 1999 dressage Third Level Tests 1,2,3,4. Printed on heavy paper and plastic laminated for outdoor use. ... Read more