Emma Harte is the most controlling woman ever, and her granddaughter Paula isn't much better. Page after page has Emma meddling in people's lives as if she was entitled to just because she had once, long ago, suffered long and hard, and was now wealthy and on top. Annoying and irritating. And isn't she just omniscient -she always sees through everyone's motives - she's always steps ahead of everyone. Oh, sure! If you hate control freaks, don't read this book.

I most certainly enjoyed the book Hold the Dream. I read the book about a year ago and my only regret was that I was not able to get all the books in this set for I only read the one part. I like women who know what they want and set their goals to achieve it. Women are no longer just homemakers but can be expert bussinesswomen. Keep up the good work.

Unfortunately, our currency is 2 to 1 US therefore some of the prices are steep.

Paula McGill Fairley is another replica of Emma Harte. She is badly suited against Jim Fairley who is a weak person. The way she dealt with Jonathan is what Emma Harte would have done. So to speak, pride comes before a fall.

This account of a trip around Ireland never really reaches the heights it should. Although well written the problem is that the writer simply isn't that funny. Two things to remember: 1) this has nothing to do with Shane MacGowan, and 2) I reckon any reasonable writer could turn out this standard fare.

I'd hoped for an entertaining romp through all things Irish. Instead, the book delivered a few random drinking stories. They're well-written and occasionally entertaining, but the book's premise is really just a starting point for a series of meandering adventures.

First of all, let me confess I laughed a lot while reading this book; that said, let me add I remember very few details. That tells me it was excellent mind candy. The tale of a briton who goes to Ireland to sell his girlfriend's car, IS SHANE MACGOWAN STILL ALIVE? profiles regional Irish culture and comments on it with a good bit of wit. Like most British wit, there is a bit of contrived, or even forced, humor afoot, and it catches up with him.

Especially touching are his experiences in Donegal and the Southeast (on a sad resort town in Waterford), but his tales are more often than not somewhat hypocritical, in that he is critiquing tourists, even as he is one.

John Taylor may be well worth studying, but this book is not the way to do it. I can't imagine why anyone would think of publishing this book again today. It was probably a great series of writings at the time, but it's long since outlived any usefulness, and it's hardly gained any historical intrigue.

John Taylor of Caroline was the most brilliant political thinker among the Jeffersonian Republicans (including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison). Unlike some of the others (such as Jefferson and Madison), he was a successful farmer whose primary interest was, well, farming. This book is about 40% political theory and about 60% practical (and now outdated) advice on farming. Read it for the thoughts of one of Jefferson's top lieutenants on the likely effects of the new American constitutional and economic order on agriculture, as well as for "Old Republicanism" (of which Taylor was the leading exponent, despite himself). I give it three stars only because the book will be of interest almost solely to historians and those of a historical bent.

Arator is a series of essays that link farming and American politcs. Taylor's use of farming as a vehicle to discuss politics predates a similar move made 100 years later by the Nashville Agrarians (see I'll Take My Stand). I agree with other reviewers who state that Arator no longer gives practical advice on farming. But the sections on *why* farming is important should still be read. Students of Haiti/Haitian history should also read Arator. Taylor's discussion of slavery hinges on his perceptions about the Haitian revolution. It should be noted that the essays in Arator were serially published the same year Haitians defeated the French. And Arator was first collected into book form (widely read and went through many printing runs) at approximately the same time Haiti was becoming a united nation. So students of politics, of history, of the South, and of Haiti will find something valuable between the covers.

This is the sort of book that gives art history--especially the "new" art history--a black name. Most of the articles are written in deliberately inpenetrable prose, always hiding the the most inept questions and comments (i.e., "Did Manet really intend to paint the mirror that way?") Only Griselda Pollock's article shows any sign of intelligence. Another title for this book: "12 Ways to Kill any Interest in a Work of Art."

This is one of those books that art history students should use to learn the complexity of the field and the many different approaches to art currently practiced by art historians. For lovers of Impressionism, this is one of the deepest and richest studies of a single work-- and what a work! Manet's BAR is one of the most mysterious and gripping works of western art, and it's hard to imagine a work more deserving of this deep treatment.

The scope of Economics of Property-Casualty Insurance rests on the title phrase. Buy this book if you need a direct definition of causes, consequences, and external variables regarding actuarial mathematical conclusions. Do not buy this book if you need a brief and general overview about "the math that actuaries use to rate stuff." In addition, the passive voice and run-on sentences may lose you in a string of thoughts. However, if you understand the P-C Industry very well, you'll probably follow the process just fine.

This book has a board view of fishing in Alaska. Unlike other books I have read on crabbing in Alaska this book tells about crabbing, salmon fishing, dragging and how the fishing in Alaska has changed over the years. It is a good overview of the fishing industry, but lacks the exciting tales told in Spike Walkers books on the Alaskan crab boom of the late seventies.

If you want some interesting history of gold discovery and the way things used to be done, this is the book for you.As for myself, I was looking for modern methods ( I didn't check the publication date of 1982) but did find the history lesson interesting. Not much mention in this book about electronic gold prospecting! Some of the camping suggestions are a bit old but with a little modern adaptation they still work.Overall an easy, interesting read.

The book talks about a lot of plays by today's playwrights like Albee, Beckett, Churchill, and other paywrights of the 20th century. The book itself is just printed so small that it hurts your eyes as you read it. The best plays in this book were The Zoo Story by Albee, The Lesson by Gilbert, and Top Girls by Churchill. So if you want hear some contemporary writing from this book, read these plays. I only wish the print was a little bigger.

I read this book on the recommendation of former Speaker of the House Jim Wright. While I found the prose heavy-handed, its appeal to young, politically aware people in the 1940's was apparent. Congressman Wright cited Huie's work as an important part of his education before he entered the Army Air Corp after Pearl Harbor. The human cost of government programs was being tallied at about this time, and the results as revealed in Mud on the Stars inspired men like the Congressman to make government work for people not become a burden. Whether Congressman Wright and his collegues achieved that balance is debatable, but his political motivation was clear.

The other subject of Mud on the Stars was racism, but a racism defined in multicolored, economic terms. That too was part of the education of the generation which fought a great war and eventually presided over the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1950's and '60s.

Huie drew on his experiences as a j! ! ournalist, particularly in the South, but his observations about government, corporations, and race were universal. For present, at least until I am proven wrong, I'd say it is timeless; well worth a quick reading.

Sarah Bradford's biographies are a joy to read. Her admirable prose style, her ability to recreate a very different era or level of society, her thorough but never tedious research give a wonderfully full-rounded picture of the public figures about whom she writes. The fact that this biography is less satisfying than some of Bradford's other works has nothing to do with any weakness on her part but instead is the result of her choice of subject. This shy, repressed monarch for much of his life seemed a fairly colorless figure, overshadowed by the stronger personalities around him (his casually arrogant elder brother, his formidable mother, his extraordinarily charming wife). George VI comes accross as a conventional upper-class Englishman, the sort of bland personality about whom no one would have dreamed of writing a biography had he not been a monarch's son. When George VI is involved with exciting external events (as in the sections of the book devoted to World War II or the chapters dealing with his elder brother's romance with Mrs. Simpson and subsequent abdication) Bradford's biography becomes compelling reading. However, much of George VI's life was comparative uneventful or dedicated to fairly tedious subjects (to me at least) like the role of the monarchy in British constitutional law or the symbolism of goodwill tours to the dominions. Nor can Bradford uncover that much of the inner life of an extremely diffident man who apparently only felt comfortable confiding his true feelings to his wife. Despite its perhaps inevitable limitations, this remains the best biography of George VI I know (but for a clear sense of what Bradford can do with a livelier subject, have a look at her biography of George's daughter, Elizabeth II).