This book was great for my existing book club- it gave us new ideas and discussion questions to liven up our meetings. The recipes are delicious and add to the "flavor" of our discussions. This is a beautifully done book- anyone thinking about starting a book club or if you have a club already can appreciate it's elegance
and insights.

This book provides the reader with helpful hints for starting a book club as well as a wide selection of books and discussion questions that will leave book club members reading and discussing for years. The reader will also not be able to resist trying out one of the delicious recipes that are beautifully displayed throughout the book. A very beautiful as well as useful book!!

Good Books, Good Friends, Good Food is a book that is of great interest to me on a number of levels. I like reading, especially the classics. This book gives a quick synopsis of some really good books as well as tidbits on the authors. I found these little sidelights to be very interesting. The recipes have produced some truly delicious foods that were most delightful. These are my favorite parts and I am sure others who are interested will appreciate the wonderful, step by step suggestions on how to start a successful book club. Included are great questions and ideas for discussion in a book club. In addition, it is a beautiful book to look through. I liked the book so well I bought 10 and gave them to my 4 daughters, my Mom, my sister & sisters-in-law, a dear fried, and of course, one for me.

Like all the Diane Stanley books that we have my children and I loved this one. The illustrations are colorful and very fitting for the time. I have always been interested in history and have searched for books that my girls can relate to. The story of Queen Elizabeth is something all children should be familiar with. I think Ms. Stanley has a wonderful way of making history interesting for young readers.

I first read this book when I was in third grade and I must have checked it out from the library 100 more times. I was fascinated by the beautiful illustrations and by the true story of Elizabeth I. It really got me into history. Now I read 800+ page books about Tudor history and I can't help but think back to the days when i used to recreate the illusrations using my own crayons and muse over every sentence in the book. Starts a lifetime love of history, and for me, an obession with the Tudors. The illustrations are perfect and the content isn't too dumbed down, but it isn't too hard. Recommended for any child who ever wanted to be a princess or ever showed any interest in history.

When I was seven years old my mother gave me this book for Christmas. That was nearly nine years ago and I've since become an Elizabethan "buff" I read everything on her I can get my hands on. This is a wonderful book for any kid who has ever shown an intrest in history or being a queen or a king. Superbly adapted for the younger set this well written and engagingly illuatrated book on Elizabeth I's life is historically acurate. And for me anyway what looks like a life long fascination.

Certainly there are societal pressures and daily challenges facing kids today. But Uhlig's story of "Grandmother Mary" shows that these problems are not really new as she introduces us to a lady who weathered emotionally turbulent times and still finds joy in her life. Mary faces significant losses while young; and yet through an indomitable inner strength, she manages to find a wonderful and fulfilling path in life. A lovely tale for kids who are in the 8-11ish age range.

When having first read this book as a divorced dad to my 8 year old, I was struck by how such a story of real life could be conveyed so simply and beautifully. "Grandmother Mary" handles some of life's difficult transitions in ways that children can understand and appreciate. My daughter and I really like the fun illustrations and images of the holidays, seasons...even the weather! For us, the book was and continues to be real treat. It truly celebrates the important connections we have and make with others throughout our lifetime. As a dad who loves to read to his child, I highly recommend this book. Kudos to the author!

How delightful to read of the not-so-usual "fairy tale " story of a Grand mother and her history...Life is often a disappointment when one reads all the "fluff" stories of grandma's cookies and sleepy evenings in the country..Mary was a true and courageous child whose life is an inspiration for the REAL world ..My grandchildren loved the beauty of Mary and the illustrations of this book....and let the author know that this reader had a wondrous experience reading it to my 87 year old mother..who enjoyed the life of Mary and the places that she could recall and relate to..such an added dessert for this family..Greatgrandmother ,Grandmother and Granchildren..I am so delighted to see the photo of Mary at her door..Long Live Grandmother Mary...and I look forward eagerly to Ms. Uhligs next adventure ..

Henry David Thoreau, born in Concord, Massachusetts, on July 12, 1817, was one of the co-founders and most influential representatives of the philosophical school known as "Transcendentalism." (Others include fellow Concord residents Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott, reformist teacher and father of Louisa May Alcott.) Thoreau's life centered around his home town; yet, as his writings reflect, he was very familiar with all major philosophical schools of his time, not only those developing in America but also the writings of Kant, Goethe, Schiller and Hegel - indeed, the very term "transcendentalist" derives, as Emerson explained, from Kant, who had first recognized intuitive thought as a kind of thought in its own right, holding "that there was a very important class of ideas ... which did not come by experience, but through which experience was acquired ... [and which] were intuitions of the mind itself." These were the ideas which Kant had called "transcendental forms." (Or, as Thoreau himself once put it in his Journal: "I should have told them at once that I was a transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they would not understand my explanations.")

To this day, transcendentalist philosophy, and Thoreau's work in particular, has proven enormously influential - on the program of the British Labour Party as much as on people as diverse as spiritual leaders Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. on the one hand and rock star Don Henley on the other hand. Henley in the 1990s even went so far as to found the Walden Woods Project, teaming up with the Thoreau Society to preserve as much as possible of Walden Woods and the land around Concord, and foster education about Thoreau. Yet, during his life time only few of his many works, now considered so influential, were published, and even those did not find wide distribution. "I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself," he commented on the poor sales of his "Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers."

This collection, one of two Library of America volumes dedicated to Thoreau's works and edited by renowned Thoreau scholar Elizabeth Hall Witherell, presents the majority of his essays and poems, from well-known works such as "Civil Disobedience," "Life Without Principle" and "Walking" to a large body of lesser known (but just as quotable!) writings and loving observations of nature ("Autumnal Tints," "Wild Apples," "Huckleberries"). A companion volume, edited by Robert F. Sayre, contains Thoreau's four longest publications ("A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," "The Maine Woods," "Cape Cod" and, of course, "Walden") - thus omitting from the Library of America series only his extensive journals and the posthumously published "Faith in a Seed," a collection of four manuscripts left partially unfinished at Thoreau's death in 1862 and published for the first time in the late 1990s, to much fanfare among Thoreauvians the world over.

Introspective to a fault, the man who once built a cabin on Walden Pond and for over two years lived the life of a hermit, was also a keen observer; of nature as much as of the world surrounding him. The shallowness and greed he saw in so-called "civil" society filled him with skepticism ("intellectual and moral suicide," he scoffed in "Life Without Principle") - and with the tireless need to encourage free thinking and personal independence. "I wish to speak a word for Nature," he thus opened his essay on "Walking," and explained that he sought to make a point in favor of "absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil, - to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society." And he went on to mourn the fact that few people were truly able to walk and travel freely, to leave behind the social bounds that tied them down, and to open up to nature's beauty. This, of course, echoed his famous statements in "Walden" that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation;" that however, as he had learned by his "experiment" on Walden Pond, "if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." And this was the same spirit who, staunchly opposed to both slavery and to the Mexican War, would rather spend a night in jail than pay his taxes, and who summed up his posture in "Civil Disobedience" by saying that "I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right" - a statement echoed roughly a hundred years later when Mahatma Gandhi told an English court that he believed that "non-cooperation with evil is a duty and British rule of India is evil," and also resonating through the publications of many an American civil rights leader, first and foremost Martin Luther King Jr.

While I had read much of Thoreau's work already before I discovered the Library of America collections, I am extremely pleased to see the majority of his body of work reunited in two volumes in this dignified series. For one thing, while there are innumerable compilations containing "Walden" and some of his other better-known works, it is still difficult to get a hold of Thoreau's lesser known essays and poems. Moreover, though, and more importantly, reading his works in the context provided by this collection makes for much greater insight into the man's personality, and his philosophy as a whole. While a biography certainly adds perspective, nothing surpasses the experience of reading Thoreau's works in context - and in the context of the works of other Transcendentalists, first and foremost Emerson. This is a true literary treasure: to behold, cherish and read again and again.

The LoA editions are wonderful. Their texts are definitive, and the quality of the binding and the paper is top-notch (acid free, etc; it's lightweight, so they can fit everything into a small package.) I've bought a number of LoA editions second hand, and they stand up very well (the type is wonderful and easy to read.)

The problem is that people come out with lots of editions of Thoreau that are piecemeal. You can get Civil Disobedience with Walden, but then you can't find Walking.

Another advantage to the LoA is that they don't have annoying prefaces that tell you how to read the text.

This is a very fine collection of Essays and Poems but a bit pricey. I have to think that Thoreau would not have approved. Go to the library and paw through some of the essays
to see if you want the ones that you cannot get through another
collection. Frequently "Walking" or "Civil Disobedience" or
"Life Without Principle" are added to small volumes of Walden.
I, of course, shelled out the cash and bought it, but I
sometimes have second thoughts. The paper is quite thin and
I have doubts about it's durablity. If you intend to read this
work several times while underlining and making notes, I would look aroung before buying this specific volume. If you merely want a presentable copy to sit on the shelves and only occasionally consulted, but otherwise dormant-than this is for you.
As a side note, Thoreau demonstrates that some mediums are
better for others. Although a master prose essay writer( I see
"Walden" a a collection of discrete, connected essays) his
poetry isn't so great. This is not uncommon, although a great
prose-poet, Nietzsche's straight poetry is very weak.
Essentially, the material inside this volume is worth your
money. This volume itself may not satisfy your needs though.
Go to a university library, read through the essays, and decide
how important ownership is for you. Thoreau would have approved
of such an investigation.

This book is a culinary tour de force that features a variety of tastes that will whet anyone's pallet! A must read as well as a must use. I highly recommend this book to anyone whose interest reach beyond the den of their house. Enjoy-I did!

I really enjoyed this cookbook and all of its stories. I've tried a couple of the recipes (including the turkey for Thanksgiving) and they were as easy as promised. I'm glad I bought it and now I'm going to buy some for gifts.

Great recipes and wonderful stories about Nick Grippo's experiences in Hollywood catering for celebrities. He answers the questions I'd ask, such as what did he make, who did he make it for, and what was the experience REALLY like. The book is fun to read and I received it as a gift recently. The photos of the food are just beautiful, the candid shots with the stars are fun and informal and there is not a stuffy tone to the book, which is why I like it. It was also quite candid and revealing -almost as if Nick is "Everyman" in an apron. The layout was most unusual. It's quite a beautiful and deliscious book and gave me a few insights into Hollywood, along with a lot of laughs and a few tears when i read it..

This concise blend of inspiration and practical resources can guide your family to educational success . . .and fun too!

Linda Dobson, author of Homeschooling: The First Year

This is a splendid and valuable work in the expanding field of homeschooling, which the authors have rendered an attractive, exciting, and eminently practical adventure of the mind--I congratulate them! I sat down, intending to read a couple of chapters, and ended up reading the entire book

Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of "Magical Child" and "Evolution's End: Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence"

"Homeschooling For Success" is a fact-filled, useful introduction to homeschooling that will help many parents decide whether home education is the right choice for their family.

Dr. William Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues, former U.S. Secretary of Education, and President of K12 Incorporated.

Have you ever picked up a book and felt it was written especially with you in mind? This is the exact feeling I experienced in reading Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Velez's Kiss Off: Poems to Set You Free. These ladies masterfully crafted a small book into a mini doctor's manual where I was able to look up what
ailed me: broken heart, messed-up family, elusive career- and receive perfect poems to treat my pain.

By reading this book, I rediscovered my true self and true direction. The strength and inspiration of this book captures the true essence of life. I feel this book is the stepping-stone a person needs to reach the top of their world. Once you read it, you will find that you keep it close at hand to refer to often when you need a shot of happiness and strength. This book will guide you through those difficult times when life decides to throw you a curve.

Who are these funny women who collect such greaat poems and then explain them to the pedestrian world? They should have their own talk show or perhaps tour in stand-up. I ordered this book on-line with some fear that it would not be as witty and wise as the first volume -- The Hell with Love. It is more of the same but much more appealing to those for whom love is a given in their lives. Highly enjoyable. We're passing it around the day spa and adding it as a key reference text for our ongoing discussions about the relationships that work and, especially, the one's that don't. I love Kiss Off.

What a wonderful collection of new and classic poems! This volume is a great companion to "The Hell with Love;" In fact, I like it better. Some of the poems here are saucy(Catholics beware); some are sweet. All lend themselves to the authors' insightful gaze into the human condition. This is a book to share and talk about -- even for those for whom poetry is still an unknown adventure. I recommend it be read along side the first volume, and can't wait for the next offering of these two wonderful writers.

"I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have th heart and stomach of a King" - Elizabeth I

This quote from Elizabeth I says a lot about this book. Professor Carole Levin examines how Elizabeth I was able to use her role as a woman (where traditionally, the public viewed women as incapable, weak, dependant) to her advantage and at the same time she ruled like a "King". Levin also examined how Elizabeth was so successful in her reign and at the same time, she was not the typical "woman" of her time; she was childless, and unmarried. She portrayed herself as a "Virgin Queen" - as in she was married to her country.

It is important to note that this is not a biography of Elizabeth I but a book that gives a new perspective of Elizabeth I, that helps us to understand the overlapping of politics with gender and sexuality. Levin did an excellent job in using unconventional sources such as gossips, rumors, religious works, diplomatic correspondence that makes it a distinctive scholarly work. This book is also very easy to read, and even if you don't have a substantial backgroup in pre-modern European history, you will not have a problem in reading this book

This is a beautifully researched, well written, thought provoking study of how one of the most interesting and powerful women in history negotiated gender restrictions during her 45 year reign. Not just a standard biography, "Heart and Stomach" looks carefully at Elizabeth's use of gender perceptions and roles to present herself as the great queen that she was. I've used this book as a text in the classroom and I've recommended it to readers and scholars who are interested in all things Renaissance and in women's history. It's always a hit!

Carole Levin's study of Elizabeth I is unprecedented. This study not only gives readers who are unfamiliar with Elizabeth an idea of her life and desires, but it is explicates the problems behind a woman being a monarch in her own right in 16th century England. If one is interested in both English Monarchy and Women's Studies, this study will be enjoyed.

...I found these short Evangelical essays to be based in Biblical truths and geared toward the problems of human life and the human condition and, in some instances, prophetic messages about the particular evils of our time and society.
The little essays may be read as daily devotional pieces or, as I did, the book may be approached and read through in several settings.

I found this book about 7 years ago and have continually turned to it for comfort. I have given it as a gift over a dozen times and each reciever has found the same comfort. Perfect for a friend who cannot seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Elisabeth Elliot's approach is one of no nonsense.
She tells it like it is, yet gives hope.

Elisabeth Elliot holds true to her style of communicating God's Word with extraordinary practicality and love. The articles are small, (perfect for devotional reading) and packed with truth. Will give you lots to think and pray about during the day.

Courtesy of Love Romances

They met once upon a dream....

And found each other in reality....

Alistair Kirallen was banished from his clan a year previous. He was angry and bitter, feeling he devoted his entire life to helping the Kirallen clan, only to be cast aside when the prodigal son, Jemmy, returned. Alistair has but one purpose, to avenge the death of his brother, Ian, who had been ambushed and murdered in cold blood, by the dreaded enemy, the Darnleys. After roaming aimlessly for a while, only to strike out in his quest, he finds himself back on Kirallen land, living with an old priest, Fergus, in a cave on the outskirts. Fergus sends him off for a cleansing ritual, and hopefully a vision of guidance. Neither ever expected that guidance to come in the form of a beautiful wood sprite, named Deirdre, who comes to Alistair in a dream.

Deirdre is a young woman, very real indeed, who is trapped in a not only loveless, but also brutal marriage as well. All she cares about is protecting her young daughter, Maeve, from the wrath of her father, Brodie Maxwell. She hopes to someday escape the prison she finds herself in, taking her daughter with her, and returning to her beloved home in Ireland, Donegal. She had all but given up hope when a vision of a man appears to her at her favorite haven of peace. She knows it is but a dream though, having dreamed of him before, but never finding this man who stirred her heart and soul. So imagine her stunned reaction upon meeting her dream man in the flesh, as the newest of her husband's swordsmen.

Alistair and Deirdre are stunned to find they dream partner in the flesh, but they can do nothing about their passion for each other as she is married and Alistair believes he is a walking dead man. How else could he have escaped the slaughter that stole Ian from him, as well as all of Ian's men? When Brodie ends up missing and presumed dead from a skirmish, Deirdre decides now is her time to escape, especially since Brodie's father is determined to marry her to his other son, Kinnon. Alistair leaves about the same time and he and Deirdre end up making the journey together. Now nothing stands in the way of their being together, except his morbid belief that Death is stalking him.

When escape appears impossible, they end up in the home of the Kirallens, the laird near death, and Alistair must finally come to terms with his obsession. He has been haunted by a recurring nightmare, reliving the day Ian was killed, and he is convinced there is meaning to this dream, though he can't find it. But when he comes back into the fold of the Kirallens, many believe him a traitor still and danger is around every corner for himself, Deirdre, and Jemmy. Will Alistair resolve his plight before he loses Deirdre forever? And will he uncover the meaning of his dream before the danger stalking them all, calls them all to death alongside Ian?

Ms. English had a tough job on her hands here, making this reviewer come around on the opinion held of Alistair. He was not at all liked in The Border Bride, coming across as "far too bitter, and a bit too power hungry" as quoted from the review written. But she does a wonderful job of redeeming him, and making it understood just why he felt the way he did. Admittedly, it takes most of the book to succeed in this, but that is the idea of a character-driven novel, for the characters to grow and change through their relationships with others.

Once again the book is richly detailed and a very colorful rendering of Scotland is presented. There is even a tough of the paranormal in this story, as seen through Alistair's foreboding dreams. A very impressive sophomore effort by Ms. English, and her talent is no less evident here, in fact it is more noticeable and growth seen. One can't help but fall in love with her characters and the accounts of their adventures. The reader will be left wanting, not because this story was disappointing, it isn't in the slightest, but wanting to read more about the Kirallen clan and their friends.

Rich details, captivating people, plenty of adventure and expectations for more, have become trademarks of Ms. English's novels. This reviewer would love to see more and watch her talent for creating beautiful stories grow and change, to an even more captivating story. Kudos to Ms. English for penning a delight and making even this reader fall in love with Alistair.

Wow! This new author has just exploded on the scene with her second novel and sequel to the Border Bride! Her Star is certainly rising and I advise all of you out there to watch her.

This is the sequel to The Border Bride - and although I would say that it can and does stand alone, your enjoyment will be doubled if you read the other first and then pick up this one. In reading the Border Bride, I was not overly fond of our hero Alistair Kirallen but in the opening of this sequel, you begin to see what motivated him to this point in his life and you come to care deeply, as he struggles to overcome his feelings of guilt and rage. The author, lets you see into his heart, and the reader can feel his pain and deep abiding sorrow over the loss and blame he feels towards his foster brother Ian.

There is a touch of the mystical here, where Alistair first sees the woman who will pull him back to the land of the living. Alistair and Deirdre met in a dream, but when the reality of life puts them together the all encompassing sexual attraction is sizzling, but extremely dangerous for both. Deirdre Maxwell is the heroine in this story, the very battered and abused wife of a madman in a neighboring clan, Brodie Maxwell, and Alistair did not know she was Brodie's wife when he signed on with him as a 'sword for hire'.

What follows is an edge of your seat thriller that had me biting my nails as it seemed as though these two would never get together, due to battles, treachery, and inopportune moments of guilt. As in her previous novel, you will also be amused by the entrance of the ghostly spectre of Alistair's foster brother Ian. Their conversation/arguing back in forth when no one else could see him was an amusing touch. All in all, this book is destined for my keeper shelf and Ms. English will become an immediate buy! Outstanding work and I cannot wait for the next offering whom I hope will cover Ronan, and young Robin and Maeve.

I read a lot of books. This one caught my attention brcause of the highland fling theme. I enjoye it thouroughly. Lately I've been into time travel romances yt this was a magical and enjoyable escape.