It is very easy to find a beautiful love poem. Passion is such a strong emotion that it has inspired countless lyrics. But it is very difficult to find a great friendship-love poem. That more stable type of love seems to move under the radar. Nevertheless, there are some wonderful poems that express love for friends, and Peter Washington has found the best of them and included them in this wonderful collection. Some of the best poems included are (the originally titled) "Friendship" found in traditional Aztec verse, "Love and Friendship" by Bronte, "My Lovely Friends" by Sappho, "Being Her Friend" and "The Word" by John Masefield, and finally, "To My Friends" by Primo Levi. These poems really moved me and gave me a lot of insight into my relationships. They also helped me to express my love for my friends to them. Peter Washington has (actually) truly made the process of selecting poems for an anthology an art, and I cannot thank him and the authors of these poems enough.

I really liked this book. For me it started slow, but by a few pages in I couldn't get enough. If you are interested in what farm life was like in Texas in the 1920's, this is for you. It goes into great detail about (obviously) planting and harvesting cotton, small town entertainment, churches, schools, food... the list is endless. Best of all, I talked to my grandparents, who grew up then verified it all. Want a good book about day to day farm life? Want to know what farmers used a hog's scrotum for? Buy it.

I like that it comes with a set. The book is also good because it tells interesting facts.

Seattle is like Portlands bigger little brother. it is a younger city but it grew larger quicker than Portland. It has the space needle and some really nice landmarks. Portland in contrast is a bit smaller and has no nationally reconized landmarks.

I have spent a great deal of time in both cities and I find that Portland is my favorite. Hence I there. This guide will take you to most the best places in both cities, but if I where you I would also get a guide dedicated to each city individually. Oh, and take it from someone who knows. Do not try to drive in rushhour in Seattle, infact dont drive at all in Seattle, stay across the straight and take te fairy over.

In Portland just take Trimet. Do not get on C-tran it will take you to Vancouver WA which is boring and out of the way.

Overall good book

We live within a couple of hours from D.C., and find this to be a wonderful resource. I would recommend it to people who live nearby and are looking for a fun family outing for the day or weekend.

Descriptions of landmarks are accurate and up-to-date. Directions give street addresses and nearest sbuway station. A city map is needed since no directions are given from the station to the landmarks.

For families spending less than a week in D.C., I would recommend purchasing a more detailed Frommers or Fodors guide since they offer more bang for your buck. This book only lists attractions. For restaurants (besides Hard Rock) and hotels, you will need another guide.

The journey that I have been led is a difficult one - from the mud flat, a detour to Steilacoom, a small climb up to Denny's knoll, and the courage ascend to the Hills.

The tearing, triumphs, grindings of teeth, and the celebrations -as words capture the emotions of the past, they captivate my consciousness and draw out parallel emotions from within myself.

The author has told his own story, keeping little distance between himself and his words, creating a close intimacy between story of the past and myself:

As Francis Framer was straitjacketed and carried off, it was my own scream for help that I hear. When her eyelid was pulled open and her eyeball stared right into a spearing ice pick, it was my eyes that are forcibly shut.

The vaudevillian movements underground come through my ingertips as I touch these words on the pages. And I gyrate my hips on Shelly's Leg.

Triumph comes to my face when it was down on 13. Shadow clouds my emotion when it was down on Cal'sbill.

Reading the book was a difficult journey for me, because, well, it had been a difficult journey indeed for those who had walked the path. But it is a journey well deserving of its travelers. As I look about Seattle, I find the reflections of my past: I hear my own language speaking through the many entrances that I have not entered. I see pictures of myself hung on the walls of places that I have never been. My heart echoes the steps taken by people whose names I have scarcely known. Today, I have, I own a sense a dwelling.

I found this book in the library when I was teaching a plants unit in my first grade class. Though it was old and the language was outdated as well (particularly in reference to African Americans as "negros" and "coloreds"), I thought I would try it out as a read aloud. My students loved it! It is rare to find a biography of a famous adult that focuses mainly on his childhood. George W. Carver's life reads like an adventure, not a boring biography. I wish this book was still in print, but it is worth some searching to acquire it. Kids love this great story of an African American hero who did not let his circumstances deter him from reaching his goals. My only initial problem with this book was the language used to describe African Americans. My principal, an African American man, believes that it should be read as is, without changing the words "negroes" or "colored people". This is a history lesson, he says, and children need to know that these terms were once used but are no longer acceptable. I share this to say, don't let the outdated language keep you from sharing this wonderful book with your children.

"The true moral, if any, to be drawn from [Washington's] life, is that one should dress as magnificently as possible and indulge in every luxury available, including the dance, the theatre, the ballroom, hunting, fishing, racing, drinking and gambling, observing in all of them temperance, justice, honesty and pride, while avoiding excess and loss of dignity. And a fine code it is." - Rupert Hughes.

Despite my general admiration for the Founding Fathers, George Washington is not a figure of whom I would have contemplated reading a multi-volume biography, at least not until I had already done the same for Jefferson and Madison, to whom I feel much closer in temperament, and had plenty of time to spare. I thought Richard Brookhiser's informative but unexceptional biography of him (*Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington*) contained everything I would ever want to know about the man.

But then, while reading Kenneth Roberts' literary autobiography, *I Wanted to Write*, I came across the following remark, extracted from the August 22, 1931 entry of his diary: "Read from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. in Volume 2 of Rupert Hughes's *George Washington*- history at its best and most brilliant."

Given the scantiness of Roberts' praise of historians, and my own steady admiration for him, this was enough to make me order the three volumes of Hughes' biography right away.

It is composed of three volumes, covering the first five decades of Washington's life and leaving out the last two, which include his presidency. They are titled respectively: "The Human Being and the Hero, 1732-1762", "The Rebel and the Patriot 1762-1777" and "The Savior of the States 1777-1781". So far, I have only read Volume 1, but it is enough to make me second Roberts' verdict about the book: not only is it well-researched and reliable, but it goes beyond those virtues of small books and rises to the level of great literature, rich with the kind of wisdom that makes you feel you are going to return to it again and again for more than just facts.

Hughes himself was a friend of Roberts. They first met at MI-4 during World War I. As Roberts writes in his autobiography: "It was my great good fortune to have as a commanding officer Major Rupert Hughes... If Major Hughes could have been given as free a hand with Military Intelligence as General Donovan was later given with O.S.S., the United States would long ago have had a genuine Intelligence Section." One also learns that at that time, Hughes was deaf, the father of two children, and "working furiously on galley proofs of a novel." Later on, he introduced Roberts to the man who would become his lifelong best friend, Booth Tarkington, and helped him out with his historical novels of the Revolutionary War by lending him volumes from his own well-endowed library.

Actually, Hughes has authored exactly the same kind of biography of Washington that Roberts would have written had ever ventured into this area, hence the latter's admiration: like Roberts in *Trending Into Maine* or *The Battle of Cowpens*, Hughes often prefers to let source documents speak for themselves; he has a writer's eye for the telling detail, for factual consistency and for the complexity of the human soul; and he is particularly brilliant at debunking myths and rescuing the truth from a jungle of misapprehensions and outright fabrications.

I was also particularly seduced by his personal philosophy, the benevolence of which is evinced by his view of business and money-making. But for its ambivalence, the following passage would sound almost Randian: "It has been overlong the custom to assume that epic poetry flies out of the window the moment business comes in at the door. We should realize the truer truth that all great business men and business triumphs have been, when understood, epic in virtues, epic in sins, aglow with poetic imaginations both of horror and beauty, tragedy and triumph."

Hughes' biography of Washington is a brilliant portrait of a multi-faceted man - military commander, land speculator, slave owner, lover and bon vivant. In addition to its richly detailed depictions of military life and military campaigns, it contains a very enlightening annex about Washington's religious fervour (or lack thereof) and a haunting treatment of his enduring passion for Sally Fairfax, the married woman he was more ardently in love with than he ever was with his own wife.

The book is really great. The facts are great for a report by a elementry student. The author is really nice as well.